


Frozen Flame

by Tierfal



Series: Love Like Winter [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Canon, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-02
Updated: 2012-05-02
Packaged: 2017-11-04 17:40:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I want to learn Flame Alchemy,” Alphonse says.  Maybe Roy has some snow in his ears, or maybe his age is catching up in a hurry; perhaps the four years of seclusion have damaged his comprehension of human speech, or his ruined eye is leaching energy from his other senses.  “You <i>what</i>?”</p><p>[Major spoilers for original series and Conqueror of Shamballa.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Doppelgänger

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The original prompt was "learning to be loved." About ten thousand words in, I accepted that that was pretty much just an excuse for letting the plot bunnies feast on my flesh.  
> 2\. A number of characters make smaller appearances, including a side pairing, but I didn't want to over-tag, so they can just be a surprise. \o/  
> 3\. Extra-super-special-awesome thank you to Eltea for all of her help, especially in the final chapter; her suggestions were critical, and her support always is. ♥  
> 4\. The ways I've stirred the Shamballa pot should hopefully be fairly self-evident; I didn't try to force in a long explanation for any of the various potential butterfly-effect catalysts. As you will see, I had enough problems as it was. XD  
> 5\. I'm serious about the underage warning. (Wow, thanks, FMA. :'D) And pretend there's a language warning. And there's violence!
> 
> If you're still on board with this thing, knowing all that…
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There is no such thing as _tourist season_ in the tundra wasteland of the North, and Roy is not expecting a visit from the Guilt Trip Committee until the roads have thawed, so the knock at the door takes him aback. He’s seriously considering the possibility that he’ll have to greet a very genteel grizzly bear (and is holding his sharpest skinning knife just in case) when he opens the door.

The last thing he would have anticipated is a boy—a boy in a scarlet coat, snow-dusted but unmistakable, like a splash of familiar blood. Roy’s whole body teeters between nausea and paralysis for a long moment, and then he registers the hair, the eyes—long, tawny ponytail whipping like a pennant, bangs wet from the snow and plastered to a face on the verge of frostbite; gray-brown eyes he remembers because his brain, shocked and staggering after the horror in the basement, let his idle hands lift a framed photograph. _Edward must take after their father, then._

Roy has come to appreciate the nigh-on-uninhabitable permanence of Northern winter. His body is invariably trying to freeze and die, and he has to work constantly to sustain it instead. His fingertips are almost always numb, and so is his heart; the drifts that suffocate his outpost cabin are stiflingly silent, as is the pain. It’s quiet here. It’s safe.

Well, it was.

“General,” Alphonse Elric says over the screaming wind.

“I’m not,” Roy says. “I’m just a soldier. I gave u—”

“You’re a commander,” Alphonse says. “It’s not a rank. It’s an identity. You can’t give up who you are.”

He is being lectured by a child in his doorway during a blizzard. Even now, Roy had been stupid enough to think that he’d escaped that kind of absurdity for good with this tactical retreat.

“What do you want?” he asks.

And then he can’t take it. He can’t take standing on the threshold with the fireplace’s smoky heat against his back, turning the flakes that try to dart in around him into tiny splatters on the floor. He can’t take watching Alphonse Elric’s skinny shoulders shake, watching his whole body sway when a gust pulls at the tails of that terrible coat, watching his eyes drip wind-torn tears that freeze on the blotchy round cheeks. He can’t take letting Alphonse continue to stare at him like he’s equal parts foreign, fascinating, pathetic, and wrong.

Most days, Roy Mustang believes in all honesty that he’s a monster. But sometimes that’s not enough to make him cruel.

“For heaven’s sake,” he says, reaching out and grasping one scarlet lapel. “Come in before you turn into an Elric-cicle.” A puddle has already begun to swell around Alphonse’s feet by the time Roy slams the door. “You’re not even dressed for the snow, you—”

_—little idiot._

_Who are you calling so little you came on the second thrust because I was ‘so goddamn tight’ that your famous willpower failed?_

_Only the_ first time _! It was unexpected! Either sue me for it or shut up about it._

_Why don’t_ you _shut me up, Colonel?_

Alphonse is looking at him with typical Elric prescience—the sharp, eerie, unnatural _instinct_ that his brother always had. Maybe they both did, and the armor concealed it, like it hid their mother’s eyes, their father’s talent, this soft toffee-colored hair and a determination colder than the deadened world outside. Whatever the case, Alphonse has it, too: the ability to look, and to _understand_. Roy feels naked and raw and insufficient under that gaze. He came around on a lot of quirks, but he never warmed to this.

“I want to learn Flame Alchemy,” Alphonse says.

Maybe Roy has some snow in his ears, or maybe his age is catching up in a hurry; perhaps the four years of seclusion have damaged his comprehension of human speech, or his ruined eye is leaching energy from his other senses. “You _what_?”

“I’m going to find Brother,” Alphonse says plainly. _It’s snowing outside. Snow is cold. I will track down and recover the boy who vanished from the face of the planet almost half a decade ago, whom everyone quite reasonably assumes is dead._ “And when I do, I’m going to need the most powerful weapons I can get.” His head bows, and it’s the first time his gaze on Roy has wavered. “My Teacher passed away, and I wandered around for a while after that, investigating and practicing. I learned a lot of things, but you’re the only person who can teach this to me.”

“I don’t use alchemy anymore,” Roy says hollowly.

Alphonse looks up and blinks at him. Then he sets his suitcase down, saunters nearer, and kneels at Roy’s feet. “You don’t have to use it. Just teach me. Please, sir.”

All of Roy’s internal systems have gone haywire. “I’m not going to instruct you in a branch of alchemy that killed hundreds and left others—”

“Fine,” Alphonse says, rising fluidly, crossing to a chair, and peeling off his sodden coat. “Then I guess we’ll have to sit around discussing the weather until spring.”

Roy can’t do this. He can’t.

He doesn’t have a choice.

He moves to take the coat, carefully, and hangs it on the door of the wardrobe. His hands shake as he lifts the damp jacket from the narrow shoulders, tugging on the cuff to free the wiry arm. All flesh. All warmth. This is not Edward. He has to remember.

“I expect you to be in fine conversational form,” he says, draping the clothing over the back of the chair, smoothing out the wrinkles, angling the wettest portions towards the fire. Alphonse’s mouth curves; he can hear that he’s won. “In the meantime, we had better get you warmed up.”

Alphonse wears a white undershirt. Blessedly, the snow hadn’t soaked through to that yet, but the garment’s tight enough that even without translucence, Roy can see the outlines of the boy’s developing muscles, the protrusions of his ribs. The wet ponytail draggles down over his shoulder. There are arrays inked on the palms of his gloves, which he slides off with delicate, loving care.

This is what Edward purchased with his sacrifice. This is the price.

Edward was still naïve enough to think that battles have an end—that the attainment of a goal is a conclusion, a completion, a close.

Roy recognizes the look in Alphonse’s eyes. An identical fire smoldered deep in Edward’s every time he trudged one step closer to his brother’s restoration. The Elrics cannot give up who they are, and they are warriors. _I will find him or die trying_ is not an idiom to the Elric brothers; it’s an oath.

There’s a reason alchemists access the power of their world through circles rather than lines. The universe is continuous and repetitive. Nothing essential has changed.

 

 

Al can’t sleep.

It’s warm enough, huddled in the General’s extra blankets in front of the fireplace, but the stones are too hard, and his body is too soft. He wants to think _this body is too soft_ , but he doesn’t quite know…

He has to ignore the white-winged moths that flutter just outside his memory. Someday he’ll catch them all and hold them close, but until that day arrives, there’s nothing to be gained from grasping at figments out of reach.

Al casts a cautious glance at the General and then crawls over to his suitcase; quietly he lays it on the floor and pops the latches. He takes out his photograph album and curls up in front of the fire again, settling the book in his lap. He tried to explain it to Winry once, but it’s something he can’t articulate—the frustration of _seeing_ the truth, of _knowing_ the facts, and of being intellectually unable to reconcile them with what’s in his head. He isn’t used to problems that his brain can’t solve, given adequate time and energy, but this is a canyon he can’t bridge. This is a door that’s been barred to him, and no amount of ingenuity will force the lock; he’s _tried_.

Auntie Pinako is good at keeping pictures fresh and clean. She’s laid some kind of thin, clear film over the ones in the album that she and Winry put together for him, which he loves, because it means that he can touch them. He can touch his brother’s face. He can mesh the memories he does have with the sort of extrapolation that alchemists are famous for, and with his eyes shut and his senses straining, he can _almost_ feel his brother’s skin.

It’s sad, sometimes, watching Brother growing frame by frame—his hair lengthens, his jaw sharpens, his eyes deepen but never dull. The armor is always beside him—which makes some small, not-quite-accessible part of Al’s heart go warm—but Al feels like he’s been lost to time. Like they were running together, and he fell; he dropped behind, and he’ll never quite catch up. He’s disjointed. The world skipped forward without him.

_Don’t get too comfortable, Brother,_ he thinks at the unmoving grin. _Wherever you are._

The General’s bed begins to creak softly just before six. He’s twisting, trying to roll over, although he’s still faced towards the wall; momentarily, his shoulders begin to shake.

“No,” Roy Mustang mumbles. “ _No_!”

Then there’s silence and stillness except for his harsh breathing. After a few seconds, that calms, too.

The General sits up, his knees rising to meet his chest. He leans forward over them and rubs the heel of his hand at his remaining eye, and then that eye flicks sideways towards the fireplace.

Al’s spine prickles. He swallows.

General Mustang smiles at him, wearily. His right hand finds the eyepatch on the nightstand, and he ducks his head to secure it expertly. Why does he always wear it if he’s usually alone?

“Are you hungry?” the General asks, sliding out of the bed. “I could go for some breakfast.”

Al rises, puts the photograph album back in his suitcase, folds the blankets, and lays them on the foot of General Mustang’s bed. The General is looking at him as he finishes—amused and bemused both. Al can almost see the memories playing behind the eyepatch; a different Elric brother would have huffed and thrown the blankets at his head, gritted out a grudging _Thank you_ , agreed to breakfast on the condition that it was made to his standards (not that they’d be high).

“Good morning, General,” Al says. “I hope you slept well?”

He wants to be his brother’s successor. He will not be Ed’s ghost.

It’s strange, Al thinks for the hundred-thousandth time as he sits down to breakfast with a man who knew a different _him_. He was dragged into the Gate, and everything vanished; then he woke up, and everything had changed. For a while, he thought he was _exactly_ the same as he’d been the night they tried and failed to bring Mom back (and coming to terms with that, _alone_ , was… He spent two days locked in the Rockbells’ attic, and he would only relive them for one thing in the world).

But he isn’t the same. There’s a break. It’s a hairline fracture, but he can feel it when he searches with his fingertips.

There are things that he does subconsciously. He used to turn his head to look at things instead of shifting his eyes. He feels _small_ sometimes—too low to the ground. There were a few days early on where clothes seemed vaguely unnecessary, and he kept startling at the sensation of sunbeams on his back. He still has the insomnia; he still flinches when people touch his neck; and he still enjoys eating virtually anything, because flavors never combine quite the same way twice.

He does not enjoy eating the General’s ‘breakfast’.

“It’s porridge,” the General says at his expression. “We ate it during basic training. It builds character.”

Al prods the mucus-like surface with his spoon. “In that case, my current character will have to do.”

The General laughs, and Al looks up in surprise. Up until now, Roy Mustang and laughter did not seem to be acquaintances, let alone friends.

“Here,” the General says. He gets up to rummage through one of the few cabinets and returns with a short glass bottle full of amber liquid. “It’s maple syrup. I promise I’m not trying to poison you.”

“I know that,” Al says, experimentally drizzling a little bit of this new elixir onto the inedible goop.

The General is quiet for a while, watching him test the waters, lick his lip, contemplate, and add a great deal more syrup to the mix.

“Flame Alchemy, huh?” the General says when Al has deemed the concoction tolerable. “I’m afraid I don’t have my gloves anymore.”

Al doesn’t believe him. But it doesn’t matter.

“That’s all right,” he says. “I picked up a pair in Central.” He blinks at the General. “It’s very odd having people you’ve never met give you things, saying that they owe you favors you don’t remember. Useful, though.” He gets another spoonful of porridge down. If nothing else, it _is_ hot, and it’s dense enough that he can practically feel it insulating the walls of his stomach. “General,” he says, “why are you punishing yourself?”

Roy Mustang pulls a face. “That bad? We can make a trip to North City this weekend and buy some eggs.”

“No,” Al says. “Well—yes, it’s that bad. But what I meant was… Why are you out here? It’s either a sulk or a penance, and either way, you picked a pretty miserable spot.”

The General runs a hand over his face, and it’s covering his mouth as he mutters something that sounds suspiciously like “whole damn family.” Then he sighs.

“It’s… complic—”

“My basic existence is complicated,” Al says. “I can handle it.”

The General gives the thin, tired smile he seems to favor. “Touché. I… there were a lot of factors, to tell the truth. I meant to stay. I meant to see it all through. It was difficult, not having been able to save Selim, but… I’ve seen children die before. I’ve cut them down myself. That, in isolation, I could have dealt with, moved on from; the Lieutenant was going to be my eyes. But General Hakuro has always had it out for me, and when he smelled the blood in the water, he sunk his teeth in. The fact is that I killed the Führer. Another fact is that I was an ambitious officer on a meteoric rise through the ranks. Were those two facts intertwined? That depends on who you ask. Hakuro asked the right people. He cast umbrage in the right places. And finally I… got sick of it. Of the damned politics. To find out, on top of everything, that your brother was just… _gone_ … was…” He swallows and tries to smile again. “I snapped. And not in the way that makes a spark.”

There’s a photograph in the album of the General lighting birthday candles at the Hughes family’s house. The man in the photograph looks young and smug and contented, with a blur of orange caught in mid-flare around his elegant hand. If you squint, you can make out Ed in the background, rolling his eyes.

The General clears his throat and nudges the bottle of syrup with a fingertip.

“To be specific,” he says, “General Hakuro said something nasty and untrue about your brother, and I went for his windpipe. It was incredibly stupid, and I realized by the time I had my hands around his neck that it wouldn’t even make me feel better, but by then the damage was done. Being an officer is about control—controlling your troops, controlling yourself—and I’d demonstrated that I didn’t have it anymore. So I… took a break.”

Al looks at him. The General looks back.

“You took a break,” Al says.

The General nods.

“A _four-year_ break,” Al says.

The General winces.

Al leans forward across the table. “What exactly did Mister Hakuro say about Ed?”

The General takes the maple syrup bottle and stands to return it to the cabinet. “I think perhaps we should start your training,” he says.

 

 

Roy’s head hurts.

He has, by no fault of his own, adopted Alphonse Elric. But this isn’t the Alphonse Elric he knows, or the one that knows him; it’s the same soul routed through a different life. This is an Alphonse without Edward, and he’s not the same. He’s colder, quieter, shut-off. He’s accustomed to acting alone; he lacks the easy brightness and the open-minded trust. He has twice the determination—one dose for each of them. Behind the sweetness and the smiles, Roy thinks he might be merciless.

There was _almost_ nothing that the Elrics wouldn’t have done to save each other, but they’d set out limits. They’d drawn those lines together, just like they’d sketched out the array in the basement of that house. And they’d taught one another to love so fiercely that their hearts were full and tender—even Edward’s, underneath the barbed wire and the ostentatious _DANGER_ signs.

This is an Alphonse who has been bereaved of the most important person in his life, and Roy thinks that this Alphonse might kill to get him back.

First, however, this Alphonse has to get through Flame Alchemy training without setting his hair on fire.

“If they don’t fit you,” Roy says of the gloves that sag and wrinkle on the boy’s slender hands, “they’ll be a hazard, not a help.”

Alphonse frowns adorably down at the fabric, which Roy can barely look at and doesn’t want to touch. “And I wouldn’t be able to use mine with them on, of course. I suppose if we tailored these, I could imbrue my arrays on the palms… I read that the Crimson Alchemist just tattooed his directly onto his skin.”

“The Crimson Alchemist was a murderer,” Roy says. He does not mention that Alphonse was almost one of Kimblee’s victims, or that Hakuro is not the only member of the military whose jugular vein has borne Roy Mustang’s fingerprints. “We can think for a while about how we want to approach the matter of the gloves. You’re right-handed, correct?” Alphonse nods, and Roy goes fishing in the Civilization Drawer for a pen. Alphonse has set two chairs opposite each other and is perched on one of them, holding out his hand, by the time a writing implement surfaces. As he takes Alphonse’s little hand in his and begins to draw, Roy thinks that he does not envy the Elrics’ mother having to raise two geniuses at once.

Assiduously, ardently, unsuccessfully, Roy tries not to think of Edward. Alphonse packs for a trip the same way his brother did—one set of clothing, two pairs of underwear, and as many books as the suitcase will hold; Alphonse’s only noticeable additions are a photograph album and a box of chalk—which means that the red coat encroaches at the corner of Roy’s eye no matter where he turns. The Elric brothers are built alike, too; Edward’s flesh hand was thicker and tougher, scarred and calloused, tantalizingly rough against Roy’s stomach, his throat, his hips, but the shared genes took a common shape.

This Alphonse retained the patience. He waits until Roy releases his warm fingers before flexing his hand and then holding it up to the light.

“That’s all?” he asks.

Roy musters a smirk—the first in a long time. “Alphonse,” he says, “that is barely the beginning.”

The grin the younger Elric flashes is so reckless and _familiar_ that Roy’s heart clenches tight.

Alphonse is already starting for the door with the box of matches. “Come on, General,” he says. “I need your help.”

He doesn’t. Not really. He’s an _Elric_.

The hardest part is keeping the match out of the wind long enough to strike it; fortunately, last night’s storm has given way to a milky-skied reprieve, at least for these first few hours after dawn.

“Darn,” Alphonse says as the first match flares and then immediately goes out. He tries a second, turning his back towards the wind. “Darn.” And a third, with his hand cupped around it. “Darn.”

Roy steps over and positions himself between the next gust and the fourth match, which necessitates looming over Alphonse and spreading out his coat.

This match manages a feeble flame. Alphonse’s eyes light up. Roy blinks, and then his coat is on fire.

“I’m so sorry!” Alphonse wails through his hands for the sixth or seventh time as Roy kicks a bit more snow onto a few remaining embers.

“It’s really all right,” Roy says. “I was expecting some kind of disaster, and this was relatively manageable. I believe that the first time I tried it, I ignited a tree, and you can’t tear that off and toss it in the snow.”

“I’m so _sorry_ ,” Alphonse says.

“It was a bit of an ugly coat anyway,” Roy says. He considers the portion of the nearest drift that he used to put out the flames, and then he moves over to Alphonse and takes the boy’s shoulder. “Here, I have an idea.” He pulls them both into a crouch. “See if you can use the array to change the composition of the snow first, and then we can move on to air.”

Alphonse manages to lower his hands; his cheeks are still shot with pink. His lip is wobbling, but after a moment, Roy realizes that he’s not about to cry; it’s that his teeth are chattering.

“Or,” Roy says lamely, “we could go inside. When we head down to the city this weekend, we need to get you a new coat.”

Alphonse clutches at the current article. His fingertips are reddening to match it, which is a bad sign. “ _Another_ coat, maybe. Not a new one.”

“Of course,” Roy says. He scoops up a handful of snow in his mitten. “See if you can separate this into hydrogen and oxygen, and then we can work in the fireplace while you defro—”

His hand is empty.

“Oh!” Alphonse says delightedly. “I like that. And if I was plotting out a path with concentrated oxygen—”

“You’d guide the flame,” Roy says.

The sunny grin is glorious and gutting at once. “Away from you this time.”

“Preferably,” Roy says. He tugs on the ponytail and promptly hates himself for it. “Let’s get inside; I’ll make you some tea.”

“And I’ll fix your coat,” Alphonse says.

Roy gathers it out of the snow, motioning to Alphonse not to hold the door, which would let the heat escape. He can’t do this. He _can’t_. He can’t let himself chart the similarities; he can’t drag Alphonse into the void that Edward left, even though— _especially because_ —he’ll fit the basic outline. Alphonse is an innocent child who needs someone to center his world around. Roy can’t take advantage of that. Edward is gone, and the possibility of his being gone someday was always a condition of their relationship. Sometimes Roy thinks it’s most of the reason they had a relationship at all—the prospect that time was short, and they had to take what they wanted while they could have it.

It doesn’t matter that Alphonse, in the flesh and blood, has molded himself into an almost-double. It doesn’t matter that the differences are appealing, are interesting, are piquing parts of Roy’s brain that went into hibernation up here. It doesn’t even matter that Alphonse seems to be giving _back_.

It would be a heinous disrespect to all three of them if Roy let this progress.

It’s fine. The North has taught him a great many things, and Alphonse was right—he’s been away for _four years_ , toiling daily to reestablish the self-control.

He’s going to craft Alphonse into the finest Flame Alchemist the world has never yet seen in nightmares, and then this bright-eyed creature of light and fury is going to raise hell or go there to bring Edward back.

Thinking of it that way, the future hasn’t looked so good in… well, four years. All Roy has to do is _not fuck up_ , and everything will fall into place.

Fine. Good. Excellent.

Alphonse’s hair is every bit as silky as his brother’s always was. It’s finer, though, and Roy can see the ends curling just a little as they dry where he sits in front of the fireplace. Silhouetted by the flames, he looks… soft. Sweet. Warm. Peaceful.

He looks like temptation incarnate.

 

 

Al actually rather fancies the hardtack piled with salted pork and slices of cheese which Roy assembles for lunch, unlike the abomination that apparently passes for breakfast in northern outposts. Then again, it’s possible that his tastebuds have frozen. He hadn’t really _noticed_ the cold last night—he acknowledged it, accepted it, fixed his sights on his destination, and trekked until he arrived. It’s strange and a little bit scary how the cold _helps_ you to forget about it by numbing the toes and fingers that it wants to take away. Al wonders if there are other killers out there who can stay so silent. He’s been told that the world tended to find new and exciting ways to grow more and more perilous for the two of them when he and Brother were traveling, but they banded together and barreled through. He understands that that was sort of their trademark; a man he met named Sergeant Bloch apparently still calls steeling one’s nerves “Elricking”.

Al wonders, though, if they were afraid. He wonders if he did everything in his power to keep Brother safe. By the sound of things, he must have, but it’s difficult not knowing. What if there was more he should have done? What if there are things he should feel guilty for?

But that, in its way, is why he’s here. He’s set his mind on success. Nothing is going to stop him his time. Nothing is going to keep them apart.

He nibbles at the edge of another isosceles triangle of hardtack, turning the subtle tang of the cheese over on his tongue. He brushes absently at some of the crumbs he’s dropped on the table, and the General says, “Don’t bother.”

“I guess you probably don’t have to worry about ants, do you?” Al asks.

Talking to the General is very interesting—like assembling a puzzle from tiny pieces that have warped over time and don’t always match up, trying to make a design he’s never seen and that no one will describe. The group at Central who had been his “team” refer to him as though he had some kind of terminal illness—and perhaps, to General Mustang, that’s what _ambition_ meant. The beautiful blonde Lieutenant took Al aside, looked him in the eyes, and said “Take care of him.” Then she brought him a binder of copies of his brother’s old reports, reasoning that “Even if they don’t help you remember, maybe they’ll help you feel close to him.” He likes the one who tells him he’s a man now (“not to mention much less intimidating without the, y’know, glowing red eyes and spikes”) and always offers him a cigarette despite the glares, but Lieutenant Hawkeye is Al’s favorite by far.

The reports helped him get a handle on both Brother and the General, as much as that’s possible with two complex, capricious, and extremely sarcastic human beings. There was a section of a later one that rallied and solidified the wispy clues he’d been collecting from the photographs, though, if nothing else. Brother had scribbled out a terse description of events in a small Eastern town, including the words _Al showed extrodinary valor, courage, figurative-guts, &tc._, which makes him both vaguely proud and vaguely terrified that he’s not that special anymore. The portion underneath was even more enlightening.

The then-Colonel’s handwriting looked smooth and measured, especially juxtaposed with Brother’s hasty scrawl: _Much as I am glad you both demonstrated typical heedless chutzpah and nonetheless returned alive, when I specify a “thorough” report, I anticipate, at the very least, a lack of abbreviations._

Al could imagine them sliding the folder under one another’s doors at intervals, both of them simultaneously irritated and intrigued.

_Your head may be extremely fat,_ Ed wrote back, _but the world doesn’t revolve around it yet. If you want more, ask. Stupid._

_The last is particularly cutting,_ the Colonel noted. _Shall I take your suggestion as a broader philosophy in my dealings with you?_

There was an inkblot on the first letter of Ed’s reply, which Al read as a rare hesitation. _You slut._

_How dare you speak to a superior officer that way,_ the Colonel fired back. _I’ll have you court-martialed for this insolence._

_I’ll make it up to you later,_ Ed wrote, and that was where the conversation ended.

“I will say that for the North,” the General remarks, swilling his tea. “I don’t think I’ve seen an insect since I arrived.”

“Except for me,” Al says, grinning at him.

The General smiles, stands, and takes Al’s empty mug. “You are most definitely not an insect, Alphonse. A puppy, if anything.”

Al’s cheeks go hot, and he understands better than ever why Brother was fixated on the man before him. The bright-dark eyes and the smooth movements and the perpetually-sardonic twist to that alluring mouth certainly wouldn’t have hurt matters, but Brother was never an aesthete and couldn’t have become one quite so fast. It’s more that the General has a maddening talent for backhanded compliments—for saying several things at once and punctuating their multiplicity with an ambiguous smile. To someone like Ed, that would have been every bit as addictive as it was infuriating. Ed must have thrived on the repartee, on the give-and-take, on the little victories and the little humiliations that they _made up to each other later_ as they liked.

There are still a lot of things Al doesn’t understand. He’s struggled for four years to work out how to be someone who both is and isn’t the boy that the people around him know. If it’s so difficult to be _one_ person, how can the General have been so many?

“When I’m finished with your coat,” Al says, slipping out of his chair, taking it up, and confirming that the char marks are reparable; “can I chew on your shoes?”

The General tries and fails to keep a straight face. “If you wish. I was going to propose a bit more Flame Alchemy instruction, but my bootlaces _do_ look delectable.”

That’s it. That’s the secret—the strategy. That’s the silver bullet, the endgame, the masterstroke. Roy Mustang is incredibly charismatic, but he’s never insincere. He teases, but he doesn’t try to hurt. He’s basically decent and exceedingly dangerous.

Alphonse Elric likes those odds.

He sits cross-legged in front of the fireplace, and the General joins him to touch up the array on the back of his hand; the combination of melted snow and frenetic activity smudged the ink. The General has long, strong fingers and thick eyelashes that dip when he concentrates.

Al remains completely still until he finishes. He likes the way the General’s fingertips feel against his hand. He likes the way the General’s gaze lingers on his cold-cracked knuckles and his fingernails. He likes the way the General’s body heat seeps through his clothes and smolders on his skin.

The General draws up one knee and rests his elbow on it, gesturing to the low-burning fire with his free hand. “See what you can—”

It’s really very simple, but Al doesn’t want to tell the General so in case it offends him. Instead, he flicks experimentally at the air above the fire a couple times, shifting its molecules, gauging their weight. Then he builds a series of corkscrews up into the chimney, and the flames soar in twirling ribbons.

“You Elrics,” the General says faintly after a moment. “You’re all inhuman.”

“You’re just a good teacher, General,” Al says, shifting so that the firelight will gleam on his eyes.

The General levers himself up, clapping Al’s shoulder once. “Play with that a while, and tomorrow we can take it outside. You’ll have to learn how to adjust to different wind speeds and weather patterns—the molecular ratios alter depending on the humidity and various other factors, and obviously that changes the way you direct the flame. Otherwise, you end up accidentally lighting outhouses on fire, and I can promise you that those are somewhat awkward to explain.”

Al bites his lip, hard. “I’m… sure that was a hypothetical example for my benefit, sir.”

The General smiles thinly. “You’re a quick learner, Alphonse.”

Dinner, after Al has made tendrils of fire encircle the pot in the fireplace several times, is an extremely rudimentary soup that’s rather good despite its simplicity. Apparently the General just believes in starting out the day with the gustatory equivalent of thumbscrews, and the successive meals are allowed to be pleasant.

They settle down as the world goes dark outside. The General writes in some kind of logbook—what he’s logging, Al cannot fathom; perhaps it’s the daily temperature or the degree of whiteness of the snow—and Al takes up one of the alchemy books he hasn’t quite worked through. It’s primarily about how to work details into existing arrays, which is what he needs; he’s never had quite the finesse that Brother did with the little things.

He’s so absorbed in the particular angles and sigils that delineate _perfectly_ sharp corners that he’s startled when the General starts preparing for bed.

“Were you comfortable there last night?” the General asks when he glances up. “It looked like you hadn’t slept.”

Al pauses tactfully and slants his gaze at the floor. “It’s… I don’t want to be a hassle. It’s fine.”

There’s a pang of guilt in the pit of his stomach when the General smiles, but it’s small.

“You’re welcome to share the bed if you like. I’d offer to trade with you, but my back isn’t what it used to be. I’m afraid it’s a toss-up as to whether I might snore.”

“You didn’t yesterday,” Al says, shedding the coat and then the jacket, darting his eyes back and forth. “Are you sure it’s all right?”

“Of course,” the General says.

The General’s pajamas are a dark green flannel that makes his skin look like porcelain. He lies facing the wall and leaves the eyepatch on.

Al curls up next to him, putting two inches between their spines. He feels deeply trepidatious, slightly ashamed, and intensely triumphant.

Tomorrow. Not yet.

Al dreams that he is the other Alphonse—not the one in armor; the one who’s Elsewhere, with Ed. He dreams that he’s lying in a bed, his eyes a little hazy, his hands clenched on the covers and slightly pale. Ed is sitting at the bedside, leaning back in the chair, his legs crossed at the knee and his arms folded over his chest. He’s smiling faintly, and he’s so… wonderful. He’s wonderful.

“I can’t believe you,” the other Alphonse says. Some part of Al thinks that he shouldn’t understand the words, but he does. “Becoming a rocketry prodigy is one thing—I mean, I did that, too, so it makes sense. But—medicine?”

“It’s just science,” Ed says airily. “It’s all just science. And anyway, we’ve got a long way to go. Don’t start trusting me now, Alfons.”

“I’ve always trusted you,” Alphonse says—every Alphonse says.


	2. The Genius and the General

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JOIN ME AS WE DESCEND INTO DEBAUCHERY. /Armstrong

In the forty-eight hours since Alphonse Elric materialized out of the snow, Roy has decided that he hates the whole family. They’re too damned smart and too damned beautiful, and when they realize that, they’re _far_ too goddamn powerful.

Roy knows how to flirt. He knows how to ensnare, and he knows how to enslave. Even now, even damaged—a part of him was instinctually working out the subtleties as they measured him for the eyepatch; he can still toss his head so that his hair flutters and falls right back into his eye. He knows how to hold himself. He knows how to laugh. He knows what to talk about and the tone in which to do it; he knows where to touch someone’s arm or their face to summon pink immediately to their cheeks. He understood the precision of the artifice even better after Fullmetal—when he had to sustain the illusion of playing a game that he’d already won. When he had to look at girls like they were goddesses as he thought of Edward’s muscled back arching off his bed. Edward hated that, which ached and tickled at once, but he conceded the necessity. Edward knew a thing or two about taboos.

But there’s always been a difference between what Roy _does_ and what the Elrics _are_. They’re small, bright suns, radiant and inescapable. Edward roared into Roy’s space and devoured everything, blazed and scalded, took him whole—and he’d thought that the silent supernova while his back was turned would be the end of it. That it would be the end, at least, of _wanting_.

But… Alphonse. Alphonse burns at the edges of his narrowed vision, coppery and saccharine and so, so delicate. Roy supposes that if he goes mad, the public will no longer be able to blame him for his depravity.

They pass a quiet day as a new storm rages outside, battering the windows and the door. Roy ventures out briefly to patrol the perimeter, but he can’t see a damned thing beyond the border of his hood; not even the most dedicated Drachman spy would be stupid enough to forge out into this howling white oblivion. Roy likes this kind of weather for its viciousness—for the very real prospect that he could die at any moment. It gives him perspective. Isn’t that why he’s here?

He suggested that Alphonse spend a few hours drawing the Flame Alchemy array to master the design. Accounting for the Elric Factor, he predicted that it wouldn’t take anywhere near that long; evidently, his Elric algebra is rusty, because he underestimated Alphonse anyway. Roy looks at the pages and pages of perfect arrays as the boy sits toying with the fingers of the glove he used as a model, tracking Roy’s movements through his eyelashes. Roy wants to touch them—the eyelashes, yes; but also the lines, completely, immaculately familiar, but not quite his. He wants to feel the heat.

But he gave that up. Where is his Equivalent Exchange?

It’s strangely comfortable and utterly unbearable at once, sharing this one-man hovel with Alphonse—sharing the food, the fireplace, the mattress. Watching the way his face changes over the course of a day, soft angles shifting through the bleariness of fading sleep to the bright attention of the morning, flagging in mid-afternoon and rallying for a second wind at dusk. The ponytail swings behind him, and his bangs skim his eyebrows, and when he smiles Roy’s ribcage contracts.

In the end, Roy weaves and dodges his way to the end of their second day together. The passage of time had been indistinct before—one storm, one meal, one afternoon standing sentinel in the blankness after another—but now he feels every individual hour pressing on him, sharply carved and singular.

Roy dresses for bed and settles on his side of it, against the wall. Alphonse starts peeling off layers, and then he… doesn’t stop.

Then he’s naked in the middle of the floor of this claustrophobic cabin, with the red coat and his black slacks pooled around his feet. He steps free of them gracefully. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands.

Alphonse is slimmer than his brother—every muscle of his body is taut and smooth, toned by the training and the sparring and the cartwheels into danger, but his shoulders and his hips are set more slenderly. His legs are longer; he might be _willowy_ if he wasn’t so obviously strong, if there wasn’t enough steel for three limbs of automail in his eyes alone.

“General,” he says quietly, coming to the bed, climbing up, “I want you to teach me how to have sex.”

“Absolutely not,” Roy says. If he’s very, very lucky—he hasn’t been in a long time; hopefully he’s due—Alphonse won’t hear his heart racing or see the way he’s crossed his legs. “Put your clothes back on.”

Those eyes. The boy is a puppy, all right—and a master manipulator, and a wounded child.

“But—but I—I need—”

“No,” Roy says.

Alphonse lowers his head; the long tawny queue hangs beside him, swaying, for an endless breath, then two.

“Okay,” he whispers, and he slides off of the mattress again. He fits himself back into the clothing, and Roy has to look away; moralistic intentions aside, he’s only a man, and his blood is hot at the very prospect of running his hands down the backs of Alphonse’s thighs. _God_ , the things he could do—the soft sounds he could draw out of that wet pink mouth. Alphonse’s face is shaped differently, and Roy wants nothing more than to learn the discrepancies by dragging his tongue through the pale hairs and gentle sweat on the youngest Elric’s jaw.

Alphonse tugs the jacket up over his shoulders but leaves it unbuttoned as he retrieves the photograph album from his suitcase and curls up in front of the fire, paging through.

“Don’t do that,” Roy says, and it sounds more like a plea than he intends. “Come on, just—come back to bed.”

This idea is _marginally_ less awful than the prospect of Alphonse sitting up all night. Unfortunately he can’t exactly explain that he makes the offer at risk of the worst sex dreams since the night after the fender-bender in Central—on which occasion Edward burst into the empty office, seized Roy’s collar in his metal hand, flicked the tender stitches on Roy’s left cheek, kissed him hard and clumsily with such earnestness that Roy stopped breathing, drew back, punched him, shouted “ _Don’t drive like a dumbass next time_!”, and stormed back out.

Alphonse doesn’t move, so Roy swallows and lowers his voice. “I’m sorry I spoke sharply, but it just isn’t… I just—”

“I’m not pouting,” Alphonse says, still without looking up. “This happens fairly regularly. Sometimes it’s every other night, sometimes every third, sometimes once a week. I have nights where I can’t sleep—I’m literally incapable. It’s like I don’t remember how.” He flips a page and flips back. The furrows in his forehead deepen, and he raises his head to fix an incredibly piercing gaze on Roy. “But I’m not wrong. You and Brother were intimate.”

Roy stares. He thinks intently for a long moment. He concludes that there is not a worse word in the language which Alphonse could have used.

“You were,” Alphonse says, pointing to one of the photographs for emphasis. “It’s the only reason he ever would have let you touch him that way.”

It must be one of the numerous pictures Maes took, when he’d rounded them all up and plied them all with good wine and better cake. Roy remembers those nights like one long blur of bliss; it’s anyone’s guess precisely what position they’re in, but he can imagine how they look. Edward’s smile would be sheepish but obviously pleased, and his eyes would be angled towards Roy—who would, in his second lease on youth in love, have an arm around Edward’s shoulders or his waist; have a grin a mile wide; have his other hand buried in Edward’s hair or raising a glass of wine or saluting Maes; and he’d be winking his left eye.

Roy only kept three photographs. One is the graduation picture of him and Hughes. The second shows his team on the cusp of an undercover mission that somehow did not go horrifically wrong—especially miraculous given the preparations, which got so ludicrously chaotic that the picture caught Riza collapsed against Roy’s desk, laughing helplessly. The third is Edward against a sunrise, half-turned, with his shoulders bare and his eyes alight.

Alphonse closes the album, carefully sets it down, and shifts onto his knees. He flattens his hands on the floor and bows his head.

“Please,” he says. “You have to teach me. Brother is—he’s somewhere else. Somewhere different; a different world, and they don’t seem to have alchemy. I’m going to find him, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to come back. I don’t care about that, but I want—I want to be everything he could ever need. Everything he could ever ask for. And I need your help.”

This is not happening. Roy is paying for all of his sins at once.

“I fully intend to help you,” Roy says. “But I’m not going to have sex with you.”

The boy frowns.

Roy rolls over and pulls the blanket up to his throat. “Goodnight, Alphonse.”

 

 

Minor setback.

Al is trying not to let the frustration get to him. He must have miscalculated, even though it seemed like he’d lined up all of the components and administered them in perfect time. As the General’s breathing steadies, he pages through the album again. Maybe four years matter more than he originally adjusted for.

There’s a picture that used to puzzle him, of a younger General and Mister Hughes—the man Al lost and then never met, whose name is always spoken like a prayer. Hughes has the General’s tie in a vise-grip, his pursed lips are mere centimeters from the General’s cheek, and there’s a photograph sliding out of his sleeve into his poised free hand. The General is giving him a bored and unmistakably loving look.

Is there anyone Roy Mustang _hasn’t_ slept with?

Other than Al himself, that is.

Darn it. What did he do wrong? He packs the album up again carefully and turns to the fire, settling his elbows on his knees as he stares into its depths. He got the General touching him almost immediately when he arrived. He looked upwards, wide-eyed, nearly constantly. He flung his hair around. He displayed his well-wrought, nubile (such a silly word; it usually makes him laugh) young body and made his intentions extremely clear. He checked all of the boxes, and it should have worked. The General _responded_ , if nothing else, although his expression was closer to terror than to attraction. Was the execution too quick? Al was hoping for efficiency, but maybe he didn’t give the General enough time to stop thinking of him as almost-Ed. Or should he have tried to make the General think that _more_?

This is going to be more difficult than Al had originally thought, but he does not even contemplate the concept of defeat. He didn’t make this journey to leave without getting everything he wants. Neither of the Elric brothers has ever taken _no_ for an answer. The General’s going to have to do a whole lot better than that.

Al spends the night sprawled out on his stomach on the floor, the blankets layered between him and the hardwood, sketching arrays for altering a pair of gloves. When he’s satisfied with those, he double-checks that the General’s still sleeping, and he takes out the Bad Book.

It makes his skin crawl—touching the pages they turned together; scanning the circles that they drank in, big-eyed and innocent and full of hope. He doesn’t expect that there’s anything his brother missed, even at the age of eleven, but he’s looking for something different than they were then. He doesn’t want to bring something back from the Gate that preoccupies all of Brother’s notes—he wants to pass _through_ it.

He’s had four years to sort out the rubble, and he arranged a long talk with a pinioned Wrath. Ed is alive, and he’s waiting on the other side. Al needs the perfect array and the perfect sacrifice—but first he has to become the perfect brother.

He always feels cold when he works on this plan.

When most of the night has dwindled, he wraps the Bad Book back in the dishtowel that protected it at the Rockbells’, where he hid it under a plank in the floor of Ed’s room, beneath the dresser. He takes out one of the significantly tamer tomes and cracks it open to read until the General wakes.

Sharp corners. Details. Finesse.

Within the hour, the General is pushing the syrup across the table.

“It’s Friday,” he says. “Would you like to go down to North City tomorrow? At the very least, we could find you a warm overcoat and something more palatable for breakfast.”

Al looks at the dim light from the gas lamp reflected in the curve of his spoon. “I don’t have much money.”

“I’ll file an expense report,” the General says, “and list it as a recruiting event.”

Al blinks at him. “I’m fairly sure Brother would reach across universes to smack me on the back of the head with his automail hand if I joined the military.”

“Almost certainly,” the General says, suppressing a smile. “Which is better than what he’d do to me if I actually tried to recruit you, but I’m much more interested in simply handing the state the bill for your room and board. Does that sound all right?”

Al pours a little bit of syrup onto the surface of his porridge and uses the tip of the spoon to make wavy designs with it. “That sounds nice.”

The General hesitates, having heard in the tone that last night’s refusal is still foremost on Al’s mind. “Right,” he says after a moment.

The remainder of the meal passes in silence.

“Well,” the General says once he’s taken the dishes. There’s a briskness to it, and a resolve; Al hears in that that Roy Mustang has firmly decided not to let the vengeful sullenness of a fifteen-year-old boy unsettle him for long. “I’m going to take a look at the weather conditions and see if there’s any mail. Do you want to work on the arrays a little more?”

Petulance isn’t worth the small satisfaction of souring your opponent’s mood. Al hopes Brother has learned that, in the time that Al hasn’t been around to defuse… except he was. Sort of. He—

“I can keep myself entertained,” he says softly, feeling misaligned; “thank you.”

The General nods and smiles a little. “Of course,” he says. It’s difficult to tell which part that’s in response to.

Al sits down on the edge of the General’s bed and looks around the room. He considers the few amenities, weighs the information that he’s gathered and filed on the General’s personality, and realizes that fortune may have taken his side.

 

 

Roy is stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Wayward. Lost.

He used to find himself—and find his center—by reaching out to people. When he felt directionless, his team was like a constellation that never changed, and he could orient himself by any one of their locations in the sky. And once Edward deigned to let him in—once Roy earned a close-up view of Edward’s single-mindedness, his unshakable conviction, his faith, his hope, his heart… Things fell into place. Edward stabilized him. Edward held him together and gave him solace and inspired him all at the same time.

And drove him to the brink of clinical insanity, of course, but Roy wouldn’t have had it any other way.

It had never gotten easier to be vulnerable in front of Edward, because he immediately transferred your fragile offerings to the palm of his metal hand, examined them closely and critically, and then crushed them and tossed the rubbish to the floor. But Roy had not assigned himself to the daily care of Riza Hawkeye because he expected to be mollycoddled, and sometimes he needed Edward’s insultingly plain sense of right and wrong to set him straight.

He’d once settled just behind Edward on the floor in his home library, which had very rarely been inhabited before. He’d leaned in to lodge his chin on the left shoulder and hook a finger into the middle of the braid. “Do you ever feel like we’re transgressing?”

“You are,” Edward said. “I was thinking. You should try it sometime.”

“Shut up,” Roy said, twisting to kiss at his ear.

Edward writhed away. It took about two minutes with an unclothed Ed to map out the ticklish spots. “Don’t ask me for an opinion and then tell me to shut up.”

“I am a man of contradictions,” Roy said grandly. “It doesn’t sometimes seem… improper… to you?”

“What’s improper is that nobody gets held accountable for a genocidal war,” Edward said without so much as a pause for breath, “but Al has to stay under the radar because of something we did to _ourselves_. Something I did to him. Anyway, the point is that I’m happy, and you’re happy, so anybody who doesn’t like it can go fuck themselves instead of worrying about the fact that we fuck each other.”

“That is a delightfully egalitarian perspective on pedophilia,” Roy said, but his mind was humming deafeningly with _I’m happy I’m happy I’m happy_.

Edward grimaced at that. “There you go getting tangled up in the semantics again. You’re some kind of masochist, Colonel.”

“Mmm,” Roy said, leaning in to nip at his ear instead. “Only with you.”

“I think we’ve been together too long,” Edward said. Before Roy’s heart could stutter and/or leap from a cliff, he added, “Your pickup lines are _seriously_ crap now.”

“I can still pick _you_ up,” Roy said—and proved it by slinging the Fullmetal Alchemist over his shoulder.

Edward howled and beat at Roy’s back all the way up the stairs, but the boy had long since learned how to make token protests without doing any actual damage. Edward preferred to leave bruises a different way.

Roy closes his eye, draws a deep breath of tinglingly frigid air, and opens it again.

White.

Clean color, white.

The sledge has been buried underneath snowdrifts aplenty, but its protective tarp is secure; it will be a matter of a few minutes to ready it tomorrow. Roy can’t decide whether or not he misses cars—the cost; the noise; the distinct possibility that he would be preoccupied, although still entirely law-abiding, whilst puttering through an intersection, and the Homunculi and certain yellow-haired heroes competing for his brain would prevent him noticing and avoiding the out-of-control supply truck veering towards him on the passenger side. He sometimes misses the convenience and the open-road adrenaline. Mostly he liked the intimacy of a completely portable private space.

Intimacy.

 _God_.

He toddles around outside for about as long as he can justify, which coincides neatly with his appendages beginning to beg for mercy. It’s not snowing hard—which bodes well for tomorrow’s weather, if four years of nothing but climate patterns to document can be trusted—but the taunting little flurries have been jamming flakes up under the edge of the eyepatch, and they melt and run like impossible tears.

He’s waxing histrionic again. It’s time to face the music and go inside.

The music is muted, as it turns out. Alphonse is curled up in the bed—nestled in the blankets, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, looking cozy and staggeringly huggable—holding a book larger than his head. He looks up and smiles with a balance of shy apology and deep affection.

Roy can’t believe that the younger Elric possesses the one talent to elude his incredibly ingenious brother: the ability to obscure his emotions almost perfectly, the better to construct and display plausible alternatives. Roy’s played that game for so many years that he can make out the rough edges, but Alphonse is a _marvel_. He’s mortifying.

And Roy is very, very stupid, but the stubbornness rooted in the core of his much-abused heart supports the notion of maintaining most of his regular routine. If he staunchly acts ordinary, perhaps some of the normalcy will filter back through. This is a good, drastic, point-proving way to start.

Also, stupid. Record-settlingly.

He goes over to the large tin basin propped against the wall in the corner, carries it to the middle of the floor by the fireplace, and sets it down.

“I’m going to have a bath,” he says unnecessarily. “They judge me enough in North City as it is.”

“Oh,” Alphonse says. His wide-eyed surprise is faintly insincere, and Roy is terrified of this boy’s power. “Do you need any help?”

“We can work it into your training,” Roy says. “See if you can rig a way to heat water while I collect some snow.”

He realizes that his overstated gesture was pointless—he has to move the tub again, dragging it to the door in order to shovel in snow from outside—and forges ahead as unperturbedly as he can manage. A small, half-buried piece of him, a piece Edward loved (“You get this hungry look, and you kind of tilt your head, and your hands stop moving”), can’t wait to see what sort of system Alphonse’s scientific mind creates.

There’s a fine dusting of chalk on the boy’s slender fingers when Roy lugs the snow-burdened tub back into the center of the room, shaking off the pins and needles that have already skewered his own skin. The array on the floor is a thing of absolute beauty, and he succumbs to the urge—sets the basin off to the side, kneels next to Alphonse, and examines it line-by-line.

“Converting tectonic energy into thermodynamic and focusing it to accelerate the molecules that come into contact with the floor,” he says, slightly dazedly, as he sits back; “such that the metal itself will heat up, and… Alphonse, you’re… really rather brilliant.”

This blush is quite genuine. “I’m not, but thank you, General. I was thinking—it’ll probably be fastest with a bit of Flame Alchemy thrown in; maybe if I moved the flames in circles around the tub…”

“That would require a level of precision that will take even you a little while longer,” Roy says. “For now, I think we should boil it the old-fashioned way.”

With the tub on the hearth and Alphonse fanning the flames, it doesn’t take long. And then Roy Mustang is facing the music again—a symphony this time, with a long operatic section composed entirely of the word _stupid_ again and again. Steam rises, and Alphonse’s clever fingers light the array up blue, and Roy can hear his heart in his ears; it, too, deems him a monumental idiot.

But it’s cold, that heart, and it’s tired of his attempts to smother it. If it can’t have love and dreams and days with sunshine on the emerald flags, it wants excitement. It wants risk. It wants to feel alive.

Roy removes his clothing one piece at a time, which takes a while in this part of the country. He manages to avoid looking at Alphonse—and, more impressively, using another of his old but still serviceable talents, manages to make the evasion look natural—but he can feel the boy’s gaze prickling all over his skin. He needs a bath, all right; how did he get himself into this _mess_?

Roy is quite accustomed to living alone, and even with the added alchemical experimentation, the routine has comforted him enough that he remembered to set a tray of soaps within reach. Once he settles in the water, which looks quite appealing given that goosebumps are already rising on his skin, he’ll be home free. Bathing is generally a private activity, but they can both be mature about this. He made himself clear last night.

The bathwater feels even better than it looks. Roy has to resist the urge to bury his face in it; soaked eyepatches are not the most useful of accessories.

He cups water in his hands and drags it up and down his arms; he bends forward, smoothing it across his knees, trying to bring his shoulders down to the level of the surface. It’s not a particularly small tub, but Roy is not remotely a small man; while it’s not quite cramped, it isn’t exactly comfortable.

Heat, though. Heat is glorious. The warmth rolls over him and eases the tension out of muscles he didn’t realize were aching.

And then there are fingertips pressing at the back of his neck, and slightly more than half of him thinks _No_.

“Let me wash your hair for you, General,” Alphonse murmurs.

Roy’s intestines reconfigure themselves into a noose. “Please don’t touch me,” he says.

“You can’t very well do it yourself,” Alphonse says. He tugs on the band of the patch. “Don’t you ever take this off?”

“Rarely,” Roy says. “Nonetheless, I assure you that I am perfectly capable, after thirty-odd years, of bathing by myself.”

Alphonse’s fingertips trail down his spine and tiptoe back up. “Just because you’re capable doesn’t mean you should.”

“I could say the same to you,” Roy says, turning to look at him now, “about _all_ of this. What in the hell is your game, Alphonse? What do you _want_ from me?”

Alphonse is affronted and then cut straight to the bone. Even if that’s faked—and by today’s patterns, the odds of that are high—Roy can’t bear it.

“Just…” Alphonse’s voice drops to a whisper, and he fidgets with the ends of Roy’s hair. “Let me? Please.”

Shit. “You—really shouldn’t waste your time. I’m covered in accumulated dirt.”

That merits a wobbly smile. A lesser man would break faced with the tears shining in Alphonse’s eyes. “You’re not. Then I… May I?”

It’s going to be a long eternity in hell. “If you’re sure that’s what you want, Alphonse.”

The small, frail smile stabs him directly in the lungs. “I’m sure, General. Thank you.”

It certainly isn’t the first time Roy surrendered to an Elric. It almost certainly won’t be the last.

Since he’s twice as damned now, he figures he should at least enjoy the ride. Alphonse’s fingers in his hair, rounded nails grazing his scalp, feel _luxurious_. Roy rests his cheekbones on his knees, holding the patch in place with the cord looped around his wrist. He closes the other eye and gives in—lets himself relax, lets himself forget, lets himself pretend. He lets the warm water trickle down the sides of his neck, lets tiny soap bubbles pop on the shells of his ears, lets Alphonse’s soft breathing and the water lapping at the tin walls soothe and lull until his mind drifts far from here.

Somewhere warm. Warm bed. White sheets. Edward, bright head on the white pillow, splayed bonelessly, carelessly, gold spilling across his forehead and down his back. Edward grinning, Edward laughing, Edward batting playfully at Roy’s searching hand and then letting it settle against his neck, fingers threaded into his hair. Edward’s eyelids sinking as the late morning sunlight makes him drowse.

Roy awakens rather suddenly as a small, slim hand brushes against his ribs beneath the water.

“ _Alphonse_ ,” he says.

He gets the pout again. Alphonse’s bottom lip is red and slick with condensation or saliva, and Roy’s willpower quavers mightily.

He keeps a firm grip on the patch as he raises his exposed eyebrow very, very slowly. “We agreed that you were washing my hair.”

Alphonse’s face flashes a measure of pain that might be authentic, and the shadow of disappointment is definitely real. “But I’ve never—”

“This is not the place,” Roy says, “and I am not the person. It’s… it would probably be best if you discover these things with someone your own age. What about those two boys—the other brothers in Xenotime?”

As soon as he’s said it, flailing laudably for a distraction as he may have been, he remembers and feels like an ass. Like an ass that’s been punched in the kidney. Alphonse doesn’t know those people. With a slow and dawning horror, Roy starts to wonder if Alphonse knows _anyone_ who wasn’t acquainted with his previous incarnation. If he has _any_ friends who worry about normal teenager things. If anyone in his life doesn’t look at him and imagine a shell of armor; doesn’t look at him and ask for Ed.

“The Tringham brothers?” Alphonse asks calmly. His hand settles against Roy’s side, fingertips stroking slowly back and forth. “I read the reports.” His eyes widen and then sharpen. “They… the final day, the day Brother disappeared—they were in Central City. I remember reading that. They might have seen him. They might know something.” His fingers are shifting faster, and his gaze falls on Roy without really landing. “I can’t believe I missed that. I guess I didn’t make the connection, because I read the reports after most of the research on the—anyway, does North City have military telephones we can use? And I suppose I’ll need a directory.”

Roy learned long ago that trying to keep up with the changes of subject along an Elric train of thought only ever ends in whiplash and tears. “We should be able to manage that.”

“Great,” Alphonse says brightly. Then he leans in and breathes moistly against Roy’s jaw. “Can I thank you for giving me that idea?”

“ _No_ , Alphonse,” Roy says.

There’s the pout again. If he didn’t already have a reserved place in the lowest circle of hell, he’d get an honorary membership pass purely for the things he wants to do to that mouth.

 

 

The General is a better man than Al thought and a smarter one than he planned for. He has the framework of Al’s design figured out now, and he’s filling in the pieces. Al had heard stories about miniskirt proclamations and desk naps and literally eight girlfriends in a week once and lots of posturing. He hadn’t expected those winding trails to converge on a man with a mind like a bear trap and one incisive eye. Sometimes Al feels like that single eye sees under his skin.

That’s when he wants Mustang the most.

That’s the other thing. The General doesn’t look at him like there’s someone else there. The General looks at him like he’s a curiosity, a wonder, a puzzle, an unexpected gift. Like he’s a little bit scary and a _lot_ interesting. It makes Al’s spine trill and his mouth go dry, to have someone like the General look at him like _that_. With awe and respect and fascination and a tantalizing undertone of _heat_.

He manages to keep his hands off of the big, warm, wet, unfamiliar body parts (which almost requires sitting on his palms) as the General finishes his bath and climbs out. Al has lived with women, and he has lived alone. He still remembers Ed’s body—Ed’s beautiful little form, soft and gentle and almost-his in the dark while his brother’s breath was low and even—but he’s never spent much time with a _man_ before. He caught a glimpse of that Armstrong officer shirtless once or twice, but he spent the majority of those encounters diving for cover with the other witness-victims, so that doesn’t really count.

He likes the General’s size. He likes the way the General moves. He likes the way the General looks to the center of things and doesn’t fuss about the trappings. He likes the way the General’s hands felt wrapped around his, drawing thin and perfect lines; he likes the way his stomach twisted up at that. He likes the contradiction, because he thought it was painful and then he wanted more. He likes the General’s hair, which is thick and smooth and twined around his fingers like it wanted him to stay. He likes that the General always smells faintly like woodsmoke.

He thinks he understands, now, why Brother used to get angry when people treated them like children. There are too many variables in a person—there even were at that age; there certainly are now—to draw a single word as a conclusion. Why is _years of life_ the factor that predominates? A year is an arbitrary measurement, and to some extent it is subjective. The past four years of Al’s life have felt significantly longer than the ten spent with Brother, even counting the fact that the year after Mom died didn’t seem to end. A year should, presumably, feel comparatively shorter to individuals who have experienced more of them, due to the fact that a single denomination is a smaller proportion of their lifetime, but Al would wager that the last four years of the General’s life have been some of the longest and the worst. Younger people tend to have more energy, too—Al probably accomplishes more in a twelve-month period than most adults. Why isn’t _quantity of achievements_ a qualifier for adulthood?

The General called him brilliant. It was flattering, but it’s also true. Objectively speaking, he and Brother haven’t been children _intellectually_ since fairly soon after they learned to read. Admittedly, emotion and intellect are sometimes inextricably intertwined, but emotion isn’t a consistent rubric either. Human beings grow through loss and trauma; that much Al is clear upon. He and Brother experienced more of that than some adults must do in three or four decades—why doesn’t that make a difference?

It isn’t as though he hasn’t considered the problem before, though, and he comes up short in front of the same brick wall of a conclusion he met last time. Language and law both require categorization. They are imperfect but necessary.

Maybe that’s what adulthood is about—learning how to deal with it.

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” the General says as he gets ready for bed. “Is everything all… No, I’m not even going to insult you with that question. Is there anything particular that I might be able to help with?”

The General settles in the bed, lying on his back, his hands folded on his chest. His hair’s still a little damp, and tiny beads of water quaver on the eyepatch, as though the water’s trying to decide if it should freeze.

Elrics do not make the same mistake twice—or if they do, only ever because it was a _spectacular_ mistake, and getting their faces crushed into the ground by the momentum of their improvised mudslide sled was worth it the first time—so Al removes a socially acceptable quantity of clothing and crawls into bed beside the General. There’s a moment of hesitation, and then the General opens his arm for Al to curl up against him.

Al likes this even more. He fits neatly in against the General’s side, head resting half on his shoulder and half on his chest. He feels safe and cared for.

“What did I do wrong?” he asks after a minute of quiet. The words are difficult to find and even more difficult to force out of his mouth. “I thought… I mean, am I not attractive? I’d hoped…”

The General is silent. Al nestles in a little closer. The flannel feels nice against his cheek.

“When I was in the hospital,” the General says, “and General Hakuro stopped in to goad me, I knew what was coming. Rationally, I’d known it was coming since it began—your brother is not renowned for his subtlety, or for his discretion; and once I’d fallen headfirst for him, I knew that people would be able to tell something had changed. So I was ready for Hakuro to slander me to his wizened heart’s content, ask how I’d liked robbing the cradle, compliment my taste in boys.” The General shifts. “Then he asked if my division’s pet whore had sucked my dick to say goodbye, and if his skills had improved since the time he did it in exchange for my patronage.”

Ed would probably declare on the spot that he would have Hakuro’s head for that. He’d be hurt deeper than he wanted to show, but he wouldn’t mean it.

Al says nothing about what he will do to Hakuro if ever they meet. He means it.

“The reason,” the General says delicately, “that I reacted so violently despite the fact that all of his accusations were libelous… There was always a part of me that was terrified that your brother had gone along with it out of some kind of misguided—and theretofore unprecedented—respect for my superior rank. That I’d somehow coerced him, taken advantage of our positions. That it was something he hadn’t wanted, or not the way I did, or not as much. Obviously your brother’s modus operandi are so vastly distant from capitulation that it barely merits wondering, but… There was a part of me that could never be entirely sure of myself in front of him. There was a part of me that was always slightly intimidated by the same things I was drawn to—his strength, his stubbornness, his optimism, his incalculable intelligence. There was always a part of me that didn’t feel deserving, and that part wondered if I hadn’t, at some point, forced his hand. If there wasn’t some part of it that was political. If I hadn’t done something unforgivable after all.”

Al thinks it through, and then he smoothes a wrinkle on the General’s pajama shirt.

“You wouldn’t,” he says. “You think your morals have been tainted by the wars, but they haven’t. If they had been, you wouldn’t ask.”

The General smiles faintly. “Like being crazy?”

“They both amount to losing your humanity,” Al says. “Doesn’t that make them essentially the same thing?”

“I don’t know,” the General says, reaching over to tuck Al’s hair behind his ear. “The point is that you are horrifyingly attractive, but I learned all of those lessons the hard way, and I don’t intend to learn them again.”

Al frowns. The skin around his ear is tingling from the touch. “I’m not sure whether to thank you or make a more concerted effort to get into your pants,” he says truthfully.

The General sighs, but Al can hear the laughter behind it. “Maybe you should start with going to sleep.” He hesitates. “Are you… going to be able to sleep tonight?”

“I think so,” Al says. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Right after I finish threading the night through a needle,” the General murmurs, his eye sliding shut, “and sewing with the stars.”

Al lies still and listens to his heartbeat, slow and deep and steady, and closes his eyes.

When he opens them, he’s lying in a different bed, in a different room, in a different…

Ed’s seated at the bedside again, his right hand resting on his knee, the left holding a book. He’s chewing absently on a section of his hair.

“Mathematics?” other-Alphonse says. His voice is slightly hoarse. “Physics and medicine weren’t enough?”

“Good morning,” Ed says, snapping the book shut, spitting his hair out, and offering a bright and beaming grin.

“I can’t imagine what it’s like to be you,” other-Alphonse says softly. “To be so… hungry.”

“I’m just looking for something,” Ed says, “and that makes me stubborn like you wouldn’t believe. Speaking of hungry, though, what do you say to breakfast?”

“What were you reading about?” other-Alphonse asks, blinking. Al is impressed that other-Alphonse caught the topic change; usually the explosiveness of Ed’s enthusiasm throws people off.

“This and that,” Ed says, starting for the door. “It’s… Hermann Weyl has this idea… well, that, _theoretically_ , spacetime could bend in such a way that there could be… passageways. It works with Schwarzschild’s black holes, and… you know. Maybe somebody could use those… as a shortcut.”

“Between universes,” other-Alphonse says.

Ed has reached the door. His hand clenches around the spine of the book, and his head tilts downward.

“Yeah,” he says.

Other-Alphonse looks down at his fingers where they’re twisted in the sheet.

“It’s just a theory,” Ed says.

Other-Alphonse’s fingers curl.

Ed slips out the door and gallops, slightly unevenly, down the hall. There’s some rattling and clanging from the kitchen, and after a few minutes of other-Alphonse fidgeting with the frayed hem of the sheet, Ed returns balancing two plates of toast and sausages, silverware held in his mouth. He gives other-Alphonse one of the plates and wipes the forks on his shirt before proffering one. Other-Alphonse takes it.

Ed gets through his toast in three bites and licks crumbs from the corner of his mouth. “It’s just…”

There’s a knock at the door.

“Boys?” a woman’s voice calls.

“Come in,” other-Alphonse says.

The woman Al knows as Mrs. Hughes looks in and smiles at them both. “How are you feeling, Alfons?”

“Better than I ever expected,” other-Alphonse says warmly. “Thank you. And you?”

She rolls her eyes fondly. “Maes is either the most obnoxious or the most wonderful man I’ve ever met. I’m beginning to think perhaps it’s both.” She holds up an envelope. “I’m sorry to come up without an invitation, but the delivery man said this was urgent. It’s for you, Edward.”

Ed has been shoveling sausages for the brief duration of the conversation, which means his plate is almost empty. He sets it down on the organized desk behind him and stands to take the envelope. “Uh, thanks. I appreciate it.” He scans the front, flips it to glance at the back, frowns, tears it open, and tugs out the letter. His fingers tighten until the paper crinkles audibly, and his face goes dark.

“What?” other-Alphonse asks in surprise. “Who’s it from?”

“My deadbeat bastard of a father,” Ed says through his teeth. “He says he’s figured out how to open the Gate.”


	3. Flesh and Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hell-ward in a high-powered handbasket, etc. etc. etc.
> 
> Also, there is absolutely amazing fanart by [phindus](http://phindus.tumblr.com/)! I. I just. God, it's so fabulous. Aside from being obscenely talented, by the way, phindus is also just a magnificent human being. ♥;

Roy doesn’t dream much. When he does, it’s just killing.

He dreamed tonight.

He wakes at a soft, faintly melodic ringing and a flare of blue light. Unsurprisingly, Alphonse is kneeling in front of the fireplace, hands spread on a circle. The light fades, and he sits back on his heels, picking up two pieces of pale fabric. His shoulders shift a little, and then he settles cross-legged and examines the product of his effort: a pair of small white gloves.

“’D it work?” Roy asks. Edward used to tease him mercilessly about his bleariness for the first few minutes upon waking up. Once he made the mistake of slurring _Fuck you, Fullmetal_ , which Edward took as a request. Unsurprisingly, Roy made that mistake on almost every successive occasion.

“I suppose,” Alphonse says, looking critically at a loose thread that emerges from the side stitching on one of the fingers. “I thought I had…” He scowls at the array for another moment, and then he shakes himself and turns clear eyes on Roy. “Can you supervise me? I’ve never done it with just a spark before.”

“Sure,” Roy says, sliding to the edge of the bed. Alphonse pulls the gloves on, adjusting them as Roy stumbles across the cold floor, and smiles at him as he sits down, blinking.

“I’m sorry I woke you, General,” Alphonse says. Roy’s instincts wake up before his brain; that’s a genuine apology tempered with genuine amusement.

“Less chitchat,” Roy says, ruffling the boy’s hair; “more fire.”

There aren’t many people in the world who can blush adorably on command; most likely this is natural, too.

There also aren’t many people who can summon a perfect plume of flame from a faint spark between their fingers and send it surging up into the chimney to dissipate. More accurately, there was only one person. Now there are two.

“You have rendered me effectively obsolete, Alphonse,” Roy says. Apparently mornings also make him slightly bitter these days.

“No,” Alphonse says calmly, removing the gloves, “you did that yourself. Do you happen to have an inkwell? Or a spare pen?”

Roy fetches the one they used for drawing the array previously and, seeing the trajectory of Alphonse’s gaze, catches up the boy’s old gloves, too. “Remind me to buy a new pen in the city today,” he says. “This is the only one I have.”

“I’ll try to ensure that its sacrifice is not in vain,” Alphonse says gravely.

Roy wishes that was funny, but it’s not.

There’s some more scribbling with chalk on the floor after that—although “scribbling” only describes the speed; all of Alphonse’s lines are elegant and sweeping, fastidiously plotted and swiftly drawn. Alphonse sits back to contemplate the finished product and tries to tuck the chalk into the corner of his mouth thoughtfully, but Roy knocks his hand away. The look Alphonse shoots him is fond and faintly irritated and highly distracted, and if his eyes weren’t brown—

Both palms slap the hardwood, and the ignition gloves in the middle glow intensely as the light swells.

Almost before it’s faded, Alphonse snatches his new masterpieces from the center of the circle and turns them over. Roy’s pen is a twisted wreck, and two perfect, blue-black arrays adorn the ignition gloves’ palms. Alphonse pulls them on hurriedly, flexes his fingers, and scrutinizes them again. Arrays on both sides, one embroidered, one dyed. Red and black. Flame and fundament. The world should fear this child.

Alphonse claps his hands together and presses them to the floor. Momentarily, all of the accumulated chalk has gathered into a neat pile. Before Roy can congratulate him (entirely sincerely; he values impressive alchemical achievement more than his own pride), Alphonse opens his hands and looks at them. Roy knows that look—knows it _intimately_ —and tries to brace himself.

“General,” Alphonse says, “I want you to teach me how to love him.”

“I can’t do that,” Roy’s voice says.

“You can,” Alphonse says, sighing, curling his hands into fists. “I don’t—I don’t really know him anymore. You do. You did more recently than I did, anyway.”

“It’s been four years,” Roy says, getting up. He goes to dress. “He could be a different person by now.”

“No,” Alphonse says doggedly, “he couldn’t. He’s Brother. He’s like the North Star. And you know—you’re the only person who knows—how he falls in love.”

_“You’re late, Fullmetal.”_

_“’Course I am.” Calculating and cheerful at once. Doesn’t that say everything? “I’m trying to teach you basic math, Colonel. If you want me at eleven sharp, subtract ten minutes’ walk times one-point-five in the event of adverse weather conditions; dock another five for distractions in the hall, times four if they’re Hughes; lose another three minutes for talking to Havoc—”_

_“Please,” Roy says, “sit down.”_

_“And shut up?” Edward laughs, merrily, but he’s watching Roy with unprecedented caution. With a jolt, Roy realizes—he thinks he’s been called in for a formal reprimand. He thinks he’s made a mistake._

_Edward has always assumed that Roy’s just a military man now, that he’s reduced himself to paperwork and promotions. Edward thinks that’s what the military does—crushes curiosity, irons out difference. To some extent, he’s right, but a scientific mind never dies. And a scientific mind never stops… wanting. Wanting more._

_It’s one of the things that’s slingshotted Roy so high, so fast. He knows how to dig out evidence, and he knows how to draw conclusions._

_He waits until Edward has settled on the couch and mostly stopped squirming. The metal fingers tap arrhythmically on the flesh knee; if it wasn’t for the constant motion, the way the boy is exothermic even at rest, Roy doesn’t think Edward would make the vibrant red couch behind him seem quite so dull. It’s all part of him. It all factors in._

_“Last night,” Roy says, slowly and meaningfully. Then he stops, fingers steepled, to observe._

_Edward flushes a little, a stain that starts in the cheeks and creeps down towards his neck. He glances away, fidgeting harder. “What about it? I told Al never to get into a car with you again. I told Lieutenant Hawkeye the same thing, and she gave me this look and asked why I_ thought _she did most of the driving.”_

_Roy had assumed everyone knew that Riza Hawkeye weights Roy’s life to mean rather more than he does. He’s also always known that she secretly loves the way he clambers hastily out of the driver’s seat when she so much as raises an eyebrow._

_He stands, straightens his uniform, and goes to sit next to Fullmetal on the couch. Edward leans fractionally away from him, and Roy files that away with his other observations._

_“While I always esteem the Lieutenant’s opinion,” he says, “I’m rather more interested in yours at this particular point in time.”_

_Fullmetal sizes him up. Roy wonders in resigned horror if the boy’s cheeks always looked like ripe peaches; if his eyes have always had that honeyed hue. Did the terrible food comparisons come so easily before?_

_“How are you feeling, Colonel?” Fullmetal asks. “Those stitches are gonna leave a nasty scar, you know. And you already kind of look like crap. You could try getting some sleep somewhere other than the office.”_

_Roy elects not to explain that he was up half the night masturbating. “I never cease to be smitten with your tact. Edward, yesterday you blazed into my office like an avenging angel and kissed me. I am feeling, in all honesty, confused—and slightly hopeful.”_

_Fullmetal swallows hard, and his eyes dart to Roy’s mouth._

_Jackpot, as a less-scientific man might say._

_Roy reaches out to cup Edward’s warming cheek, the heel of his hand pressing at the slope of the boy’s jaw, thumb resting on the soft space in front of his ear, fingertips encroaching into his hair. “Level with me, Major Elric.”_

_“Oh, my God,” Edward says. “You’d totally call me that, wouldn’t you? And Fullmetal—you’d call me ‘Fullmetal’ in—all the time. In awkward situations. You’re so_ weird _, Colonel. Doesn’t the military have a psychologist you can go to about this kind of thing?”_

_“I’m afraid my weirdness is a condition of any arrangement you’d like to make,” Roy says. He holds his performances to extremely high standards at the best of times, but this is a winner; he doesn’t think Edward has the faintest idea how fast his head is whirling, how hard his heart is pounding, how much he wants to provoke an_ awkward situation _right this second on his office couch. “Let’s just… make sure we’re on the same page.”_

_“Okay,” Fullmetal says gamely. He doesn’t seem to be fully aware of the fact that he’s leaning into Roy’s hand. “You’re not allowed to pass off military function crap as dates, and I don’t want to go to_ anything _where, like, the Führer would start giving me knowing looks, because that would make me barf. And no one’s allowed to tell Major Armstrong, because… just… no. And I want to see a printout of the test results telling me you don’t have any diseases or anything before we—_ if _we… y’know… because when I get this body restored, I don’t want it to be polluted.” He pauses for breath, chews on his lip, and glances down to tally on his metal fingers. “Oh, yeah!” He glares, and Roy concentrates on not diving on him. “You, Colonel, have to stop talking in motherfucking euphemisms. Just say what you want to say, all right?”_

_It’s… kind of a relief. That Fullmetal actually wants to pursue this, of course, whatever ‘this’ is; that last night’s encounter wasn’t just a fluke of panic and hormones and typical authority-flouting for fun—but also that he’s… the same. That he’s still Edward Elric, golden head to steel toe. That he treated the prospect of a romantic relationship with his commanding officer the same way he treats everything that throws him—by barreling straight in as if he’s already resolved, trusting the huge heart crammed into his undersized chest._

_Sometimes the individuals Roy dates change once they get what they want—what they think they want, at any rate. Sometimes they start to act entitled. He should have remembered that the Fullmetal Alchemist doesn’t compromise for anyone, and he doesn’t take anything for granted._

_Which is, of course, why Roy is kind-of-sort-of-a-smidgeon infatuated with him in the first place._

_“Deal,” Roy says. “A deal upon which you cannot renege when you get your wish.”_

_Edward’s face illuminates with his most brilliant, most challenging, most impish grin, and Roy leans in to kiss it off of him._

_“Hang on a damn second,” Edward says. Roy blinks. Their faces are less than an inch apart, but Fullmetal is looking at him entirely seriously. “First I have to make sure it’s okay with Al.”_

_He bounces up and bounds for the door._

_“Does Alphonse also tie your shoelaces?” Roy asks despairingly. It’s not that Al won’t give permission; he will, and Roy will be glad for his approval. It’s the thought of Fullmetal clearing every stage of their prospective relationship with his extremely protective sibling before they can progress._

_“My boots don’t have laces, Colonel,” Edward says. “Jeez, for somebody who’s supposed to be in love with me, you don’t pay much attention. Hey, if you take me out to dinner, it comes out of your pocket, not my budget, right?”_

_“You’re dismissed,” Roy says._

_Edward sticks out his tongue and then gallops from the room, slamming the door behind him._

_“Hiya, Boss,” Havoc says. “How’d the meeting go?”_

_“Great!” Edward says. “You shouldn’t smoke those things; they’re gonna kill you. See you later, Lieutenant!”_

_Another door slams, and he’s gone._

_On the upside, already sitting on the couch makes it easier for Roy to flop down and bury his face in the cushion._

Roy is standing in front of the wardrobe with his coat in his hands. Alphonse is staring at him, which raises the question of exactly how long he’s been standing here.

“I’m going to prepare the sledge,” he says, shouldering his way into the well-stared-at coat and turning to the door. “Can you be ready inside of fifteen minutes?”

“I can,” Alphonse says hesitantly. “General, are you… all ri—”

“Fifteen minutes,” Roy says, and he steps out into the white.

 

 

The snow isn’t exactly hospitable as they make their way down the long, icy path towards North City, but it’s nowhere near as openly hostile as it was the night that Al arrived. It’s funny how he’s started to think of the weather here like a person, with moods, intentions, and ideas all its own. He knows that the General thinks of it that way, but the General is so lonely that he’d personify a walking stick.

The General talks about extraordinarily mundane things extraordinarily glibly as they make their way down the mountain. Al stops lamenting the cold a little ways into a very funny anecdote about a florist who wouldn’t let the General buy flowers for a date unless he promised to go out with her the following night, and the rest of the trip slips away as the stories continue. It’s just idle conversation, but the General has a way of making it engaging without being too… _important_ —so that it’s both comfortable and comforting. Al has spent a lot of time thinking about things that Brother will like, and he imagines that Brother must have loved the way the General talks. Al imagines that after a long day, he’d lay his head down in the General’s lap and just… listen. Listen to the soft, low, warm voice, speaking eloquently about ordinary things, and the General would stroke his hands through Brother’s hair.

Al isn’t sure how long they’ve been walking or how many miles they’ve covered, but the sun has shifted up to a sharp angle by the time he looks down upon a modest city of snow-dappled wood and stone. Their route takes them in from the east, which does not appear to be the nicest part of town, and the General keeps one hand on Al’s shoulder, the other clasped around the tow-rope of the sledge. It’s a bit silly, given that Al’s meandered around half of this country unsupervised, given that he was trained by Teacher, given that he could reduce this city to rubble and ash within an hour’s time, but he doesn’t argue. It’s sweet that the General cares, and Al likes the weight of his hand.

So Al says nothing and takes in everything. The General is leading them towards the center of the city; there’s a faint, shrill train whistle from the south. They stop near a vendor who’s stomping her feet, hands tucked under her arms, letting the dizzyingly good smells emanating from her cart make the sales.

“I know the call is important,” the General says before Al can swallow enough of the water in his mouth to speak, “but you need to eat, and we skipped breakfast.” He squeezes Al’s shoulder, sets the tow-rope atop the sledge, and moves over to the cart. The vendor spends the entirety of the brief conversation tilting her hips to either side and slanting glances through her eyelashes, and the General is smiling in a way Al’s never seen. Shortly he returns with a pair of meat-and-vegetables-wrapped-in-bread-swathed-in-paper constructions. “Don’t wolf it down all at once,” he says. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

That’s a reflex, Al knows, because it’s a warning for Brother, not for him.

But the food is good, and the General’s tongue keeps darting out to rescue crumbs from the corner of his lips. Al hadn’t realized how hungry he’d been until he sees that there’s nothing but paper in his hands.

“Right,” the General says. “This way.”

He leaves the sledge at the foot of the slick stone steps that climb up to an imposing building with marble pillars. He holds the door for Al and then sets one hand very lightly between Al’s shoulder-blades as they go up to an official-looking desk.

“Oh,” the young woman behind it says, sounding pleased, as she looks up. “Private Mustang. We were hoping you’d be down soon.”

_You mean_ you _were hoping he’d_ go down on you _soon,_ Al thinks, and then he decides maybe that’s unfair. She looks nice.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” the General says, flashing a grin that could level a small army of schoolgirls. “Let me get you all of the paperwork and the logs since my last check-in…” He retrieves a neat parcel of papers from inside his coat and pushes it across the desk, leaving one elegantly-arched finger on top of it for a moment longer than necessary. “And then I’m afraid I have a favor to ask.”

The receptionist looks like she would volunteer her skeleton for a science project if the whim struck him. “I’ll certainly see what I can do, sir.”

“This is Alphonse Elric,” the General says, hand settling more firmly on Al’s back. “He’s the younger brother of a distinguished officer, and, currently, my charge.” The idea of the General taking in needy children would probably have caused some women to faint; this one sways ever so slightly. “He needs to make a telephone call to a rather remote small town in the East. Do you think you could help?”

Al has never seen someone’s eyes actually _shine_ before.

The General’s fingertip brushes the nape of his neck, and he gets a whole new kind of goosebumps. “I’m going to go see about supplies, Alphonse. Cecilia here will take good care of you.”

She does, actually. She’s not a twit after all—not in the least. As soon as the General’s gone, it’s like she emerges from a soft, sparkly mist and becomes a smart, competent, efficient human being again. Neither of them acknowledges the way the General momentarily turned her into soppy goo. Given the fact that Al stripped naked for an ounce of that smoldering attention just two nights ago, he doesn’t think he has any right to judge.

“I’m afraid Xenotime is still fairly leery of telephone wires,” Cecilia says, guiding him into a small office with a phone on the desk and settling a huge book beside it. “I understand they have a lot of orchards, so that makes sense. If you call their town hall operator…” She flips through the book, stops on a page towards the end, and drags a finger down the endless lines of tiny text. “Here. She should be able to connect you if the person you’re calling has a phone—and if not, she might at least be able to pass on a message.”

Al gives her his single cutest smile. It’s not quite as potent as the General’s suave one, but it does the trick; she looks delighted.

“Thank you so much,” he says. “I’ll try not to be too long.”

“Take your time, sweetheart,” Cecilia says.

There are so many different types of power in the world. The more of them Al sees in action, the more he wants them _all_.

He refined the plan this morning before the General woke up. He marks the Xenotime number in the book and then dials a much more familiar one.

“Rockbell Automail,” Winry’s voice says after two rings. She’s a bit short of breath, leading Al to infer that she just ran down the stairs to answer. “How can I help you?”

“Hi, Winry,” Al says.

“ _Al_!” she cries. “Are you all right? Where are you?”

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’m in North City. Winry, I need to ask you something.”

The silence says _You sound like Ed_ louder and more distinctly than her voice ever could. “Um… sure, Al. What do you need to know?”

“Have you seen Wrath lately?”

“Not since the time Sheska and I—in Central, he stopped us from going into the ‘underground city’ below Central Command. He said there was… a monster. Something huge and hungry, like we couldn’t even imagine.”

That’s what he needed. “But you haven’t seen him since?”

“He hasn’t been here, and the last time I visited Sheska… Although now that you mention it, in her last letter, she said she thought she’d seen him—at night, in the dark, and it scared her half to death. She said she barely caught sight of him, but it looked like his automail was a mess, and he was gone by the time she’d called his name.”

Al smiles. “You don’t say. Well, I should probably let you get back to work—it was nice to hear from you.”

“Al,” Winry says slowly, “are you…” She sighs. “Just… be careful, all right?”

“ _Careful_ is my middle name,” Al says brightly.

“No, it’s n—”

“’Bye, Winry!”

He can vividly picture her shaking her head. “See you later, Al.”

He hangs up and then lifts the receiver again. Just a couple pieces left, and he’ll be able to transmute his hunch into a battle plan.

The Xenotime operator responds beautifully to his shy-voiced query and tells him that he’s in luck: “those nice boys” have just had a telephone installed. Momentarily, the line rings again, and Al swallows, considering and reconsidering which words to use.

“Keep it upright—perfect,” a young man is saying. He clears his throat. “Tringham residence; may I ask who’s calling?”

“Good morning,” Al says. “This is Alphonse Elric.” The silence stretches long enough that he wonders if one of the orchard trees has fallen on the wires. “Hello?”

“It’s really—there’s no echo. Did he—did he put you back?”

“You mean my brother?” Al says carefully. “I… yes. That’s actually what I need to talk to you about. You were there, weren’t you?”

“We…” There is a moment of hesitation from Russell Tringham, a name dotted with angry inkblots in Brother’s report. A double. Almost a myth. “We were the last ones who saw him. I told him—”

There’s some static, and then a younger, higher voice. “Russell told him to come back alive. What can we tell _you_ , Al?”

“Everything you know about the Underground City,” Al says.

When Cecilia knocks lightly on the door an hour later, Al has encoded the final draft of his notes and incinerated all the previous ones. He now understands why everyone in Central flinched when he snapped his fingers with his old gloves on.

“Private Mustang is waiting for you outside,” Cecilia says. “Shall I tell him you need another minute?”

“That’s all right,” Al says, tucking the notes into his jacket. “I’m all done here. I know what I have to do.” He bows swiftly. “Thank you for everything, ma’am.” Then he hands her the ashtray containing the remains of his early notes. “Um… thanks for this, too. Gotta run!”

The General’s visible eyebrow rises as Al careens down the stairs. “I take it you got what you were looking for.”

“The Elric brothers always do,” Al says, and the General does that thing again—the thing where his smile doesn’t falter, but the spark in his eye goes out. “Did you buy everything you needed?”

The General gestures to the sledge, which is now piled with wrapped packages, all of them tied down securely, swaddled with the tarp. “Now it’s just a matter of heading back before the weather notices how vulnerable we are.”

Despite the General’s concerns—Al could say “paranoia,” but it doesn’t seem fair, not after what he’s seen a critical mass of the soft flakes become—the clouds merely loom, silent and unproductive.

“What did you find out?” the General asks. “Or is that a secret?”

“Not really,” Al says. He might as well share; he knows how it’ll go from here. “Fletcher Tringham told me where to look and that Brother said that he wouldn’t use the Stone.”

The General frowns. “But then—”

“I used it,” Al says. “He used something else.” He nibbles on his lip even though his saliva is threatening to freeze. “I heard Rose talking to Winry about it once… Stupidly I let her go back to Liore before I learned what only she could have told me about that day. But that’s okay; I think I’ve figured it out—and to be honest, it doesn’t really matter what happened down there. After I woke up in the ruins of our house, everything changed.” He looks down at his hands, turning them over and then back. “Now I have the power to change some things, and I intend to use it.”

“Down where?” the General asks.

“Oh,” Al says. “Down in Central City.” _You’ll see._

“Planning a trip?” the General asks, and his faux-casual tone is so smooth even Al almost believes it.

“Yes,” Al says simply. He’s halfway through the yawn before he processes it. “I’m… I’m exhausted. I guess it’s just all the excitement. How much further do we have to go, General?”

The General stops walking, which is definitely not going to help. Then he points to the sledge.

“Lie down if you’d like,” he says. “We can’t afford to slow down.”

Al blinks. “Are you sure I wouldn’t be too hea—”

“You weigh less than Lieutenant Hawkeye’s assorted firearms,” the General says. “Besides, it’ll be good exercise. I’ll need some if we’re going to be running around in Central like the pair of lunatics we are.”

He already knows—and he’s _willing_.

Al understands now why Brother loved this man. He thinks he might love him, too.

At first, it seems like the scrape of snow under the runners and the uneven path will keep him awake, but his body has other ideas.

A street comes into focus—a street that’s different, subtly, in the lines of the architecture and the ways that people stand.

“Ed,” the other-Alphonse says, both arms wrapped around himself, watching Brother pace feverishly back and forth. “You’re making me dizzy.”

Ed stops short—oh, he’d kill Al for that—and moves over hesitantly. “Uh, sorry. It’s just… Alfons, I don’t… know what to do now.” He gazes skyward. “I thought rockets were the answer. Then… fucking general relativity fouled that up something awful, but then— _black holes_. That could work. Except… stupid bastard Hohenheim thinks…”

“Thinks you could go home,” Alfons finishes softly. “That’s what you should do, Ed. You know that.”

“But I can’t leave you!” Ed says, and Al’s heart has silver skewers straight through it, because this— _this_ —is the essence of his brother. This is Edward Elric, eyes wide open and desperate and gleaming gold. “Not when we’ve finally got your illness into remission—hopefully, anyway—and everything’s _working_. And a part of me wants—a part of me’s always wanted—to…” His ranting voice trails off. He swallows hard. “Well, to… take you with me.” He buries both hands in his hair and thoroughly dishevels his ponytail. “But you _love_ it here! Of course you do; it’s your country, your world, your home. And I don’t even know for sure if we could cure you there; I was reading Marcoh’s notes for something else, and I wasn’t paying attention to that kind of stuff. It’s a longshot at best, and I just…” He slams his left fist against the sooty brick wall of the nearest building. “I’m just going crazy. I guess that’s familiar ground, at least.”

_So much passion. So much life. So much love._

Al doesn’t know whose thoughts those are. Everyone who’s ever met Ed, probably.

“Edward,” Alfons says quietly. He curls into his coat a little and steps closer. “Edward, you’re… Yes, I love it here. I still haven’t seen Paris, or Rome, or Egypt, or… well, anywhere, really. I still haven’t published my research. I still have a lot I wanted to do. But… you’re…” He swallows, struggles, glares at the dirty cobblestones, and perseveres. “I don’t know how long I would’ve had left on my own. You’ve given me the last two years of my life, and however many there are in front of me now. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had and the brother I never did.” He looks up into the blazing gold eyes and finds the strength. “You’ve become my world, Ed. And I want to go with you.”

Before he can blink, Ed’s hauled him into a rib-cracking hug. It’s too tight, especially since there’s no give to Ed’s right arm, and Alfons gasps in surprise and then starts coughing. Hastily Ed lets go, grabbing Alfons’s hand with his left one, squeezing, wincing, stricken.

“Sorry—I’m sorry. I forgot. Jeez, you do weird things to my head, Alfons. Are you…”

“Sure about this?” Alfons says, smiling. “Look,” he says, and he holds out the clean hand he used to cover his mouth. “You’re some kind of miracle, Ed,” he says. “Even if I didn’t love you, I’d be stupid to give you up.”

Ed flushes hotly all the way to his ears. “Hey, no need for _that_ kind of talk. Maybe Hohenheim’s full of shit anyway—wouldn’t be the first time.”

“I think two scientists are the best people to put that to the test,” Alfons says contentedly. “Are you going to pack now?” At Ed’s firm nod, he smiles again. “Since I’m finally out of that bed, I think… I’m going to take a quick walk around the neighborhood.” _The last one. I can feel that._ “Will you figure out which books we can bring?”

“I’ll take care of everything,” Ed says, grinning broadly, and Alfons can’t help but to believe him.

Moments after Ed’s disappeared into the flower shop, a figure emerges from a side-street. Al recognizes that face, too.

“Good afternoon, Officer Hughes,” Alfons says warmly. He hesitates when he notices how Hughes’s eyes dart the way Ed left. “Is—everything all right?”

Hughes takes a deep breath and rubs at his chin. “Will you do something for me?” he asks. “It’s going to sound strange, but… That look on Edward’s face. He’s on the hunt for something wild, isn’t he? I can’t explain it, but I feel like… like somebody’s tromping all over my grave. In steel-toed work boots. I’ve started going with my gut a lot more lately, and right now it’s begging me to make you take this.”

He glances towards the shop again, and then he holds out a pistol, barrel pointed down.

Alfons’s mouth doesn’t work for a moment, and when it does, all he can manage is, “What?”

Hughes shrugs helplessly, rubs at the back of his neck, and offers a self-deprecating smile. “I don’t know either, Alfons. But something tells me you’re going to need this more than I do. Humor me?”

Alfons shakes his head, then nods, then extends his hand and curls his fingers around the cold—

 

 

Roy expects some grumbling and a glare when he drags the sledge up in front of the cabin and shakes Alphonse’s shoulder gently. What he gets is a gasp and a wail that echoes back off of the bluish snow. Roy pulls his hand back as if he’s been—well, burned.

“But where are they going?” Alphonse mumbles, half under his breath, as he scrambles down and gathers his coat—the one that looks like Fullmetal’s as well as the new one that Roy draped over him while he slept—around his shoulders. “Where would he send them? If—it shouldn’t matter as long as the circles coincide…”

“Alphonse,” Roy says slowly, reaching for his arm, but the boy’s already turning and tracking inside, fumbling in his scarlet coat until Roy hears paper crinkle.

Never mind. He knows better than many, if not all, how incorrigibly single-minded the Elrics can be when they’ve seized on something they want. Alphonse will elucidate matters when he’s good and ready and thinks Roy has earned some answers, and not before.

Alphonse huddles in front of the fire—which was down to embers and is roaring now—to examine some tightly-written sheets of paper as Roy unpacks the sledge and replaces it under the cabin’s eaves. He sheds his outer layers, assembles dinner, and puts a bowl in front of Alphonse; at last he gets an acknowledgement in the form of a long stare from the bright tawny eyes.

“I need to sleep tonight,” Alphonse says. “How long will it take to get to Central?” He looks down again before Roy can answer, gloved fingertips curling in his ponytail and pulling on it hard. “But I can’t be sure the timelines are perfectly coincident. I assume the two sides of an array—there must be an array; he’d use an array—would pull them into an intersection even if the timing wasn’t exact—”

“Alphonse,” Roy says, “eat. Then tell me what in the hell you’re talking about.”

The boy gives into the former but not the latter. Roy is depressingly unsurprised.

“I need to sleep tonight,” is all he says. “It’s very important, General.”

“I think I have some old cough syrup,” Roy says. “My understanding is that it’ll knock you out in a hurry. Although if it’s expired, there’s a chance it’ll poison you instead.”

Alphonse frowns. “No. That’s too many variables. I should stick with natural sleep, at least for now.”

Roy thought Edward had gotten him used to conversations in which he participates without having the faintest idea what the subject actually is, but he seems to be out of practice. He sets his chin on his hand as Alphonse, who has finally conceded to sit at the table, nips reflectively at the edge of his spoon—little white teeth and hazy brown eyes.

“If you help me fall asleep tonight,” Alphonse says in a voice so soft that Roy leans in before he realizes that’s the intent; “and come with me to Central City, I’ll tell you everything on the train.”

“You know what they say about curiosity killing the cat?” Roy asks.

Alphonse grins. “Having seen every inch of you, General, I can declare with some authority that you are not a cat.”

_But satisfaction brought him back._ “I reserve the right to stage a tactical retreat at any point if things get out of hand,” Roy says.

“Done,” Alphonse says silkily, and Roy can feel the flames of hell licking at his heart.

When the night has settled in, Alphonse lies down next to Roy, dressed in his pale purple shorts and his white undershirt, ponytail curled on the pillow beside him, and folds his hands on his chest.

“I shouldn’t have taken than nap earlier,” he says. “Darn. But I needed to know all that. _Darn_.”

This would be much more amusing if Roy hadn’t begun to sense the shape of his impending doom. “Just lie still for a while. Close your eyes. See how you feel.”

“I feel like I want to run outside and make snow angels,” Alphonse says. He purses his lips. “Do you think that if I allowed myself to get mild hypothe—”

“No,” Roy says.

Pursed turns into pouting. “I’m going to have to do something. I’m just _awake_.”

“Stop squirming,” Roy says. “And don’t talk. Think of something peaceful, like… summer in Resembool.”

Alphonse lays an arm over his eyes. “I can’t think of it as peaceful anymore. Too many things ended there, and too many things began. It’s idyllic, but it’s a catalyst. It’s a cradle. You can’t go back once you’ve outgrown it, which I’ve technically done twice.”

“I see you also inherited your brother’s inability to shut up.”

Alphonse sits up a little to scowl at him, sees that he’s trying not to grin, and sighs. “Maybe I’m approaching this the wrong way. Let’s think about it scientifically. I’m warm. I’m well-fed. I’m just not worn out. Maybe if I did some of my sparring exerci—”

“You still wouldn’t be worn out,” Roy says. “You’d be wound up.”

Alphonse makes a face. “ _Assuming_ that your hypothesis is correct, General, what would you suggest?” His eyes slip sideways to focus on Roy. “Given your thorough knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of a similar genome.”

“Are you asking what I’d do to put your brother to sleep?” Roy manages. “Talk to him about his overdue and/or mysteriously missing paperwork. He’d be snoring loudly before I finished a sentence.”

“Let’s try that,” Alphonse says. “Tell me about Central politics.”

Roy’s been out of that shark-infested pool for a long time now, but it won’t have changed much. He sketches an overview of the ways people rise and fall, the elaborate network of ass-kissing, what indiscretions simply require you to look the other wa—

“No use,” Alphonse says after five minutes almost exactly. “I need something mind-numbingly boring, General. What about etiquette? Tell me about place settings.”

Roy has barely started in on oyster forks before the interruption comes.

“Darn it,” Alphonse says. “You’re just too interesting, General.”

Roy blinks. “Thank you?”

Alphonse presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I hate this,” he says miserably. “The first time I make any real progress—the first time I sort anything out on my own—and of course I immediately mess it up.” He huffs out a frustrated breath. “I don’t… It was always Brother, wasn’t it? It was always Brother who figured everything out, made the plans, led the way. I’m not cut out for it by myself.”

“Don’t even start,” Roy says. “You just learned Flame Alchemy in two days. Do you have any idea how brilliant you are? And I assure you that I am uniquely qualified to testify that intricate and aggressive planning is significantly easier when you have an advisor to substantiate your ideas. Your brother would never have been so unstoppable on his own.”

Alphonse is quiet for a moment, smoothing at the white cotton stretched over his chest, and then he shakes his head vigorously. “It’s not the same. And it doesn’t make a difference whether or not he had the other me as an accomplice; the fact is that I screwed up, because I’m an _idiot_. Brother would have thought that through, because he’s always analytical, and he doesn’t let stuff slip through the cracks. I’m just—I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. And I don’t—I don’t think I’m strong enough. I’m not.” His fingers curl tightly in his shirt, and his voice starts to catch. “I just—it’s all going to fall apart and _fail_ because I can’t keep one stupid objective in mind without getting so distracted I ruin everythi—”

“ _Hush_ ,” Roy says, laying a hand on his stomach, not entirely sure as of yet whether he intends to stroke placatingly or pin the boy to the bed. “Alphonse, listen to me. Nothing irreparable has been done, and I’m going to help you set things right. I’ll be your advisor.”

Alphonse shakes his head so violently he’s nearly thrashing, and Roy shifts both hands, trying to catch his shoulders and hold him down long enough to talk some sense into him. His magnanimity merits a sharp knee to the abdomen and then, while he’s still wheezing, a mad, desperate, teeth-and-tongue kiss.

“ _Alphonse_ ,” he gasps out when he succeeds in drawing back—but by then the hysteria has set in properly, and the boy is dry-sobbing and clinging to him and pulling at his clothes. Roy startles at the rather telling pressure of Alphonse’s need where the boy’s hips are pushed against his thigh. He remembers how it feels to be fifteen and bewildered and ambitious and alone.

He takes a deep breath, fights to stop the spinning in his skull, and kisses Alphonse’s forehead.

“Stay still,” he says, climbing over the writhing little body and planting a knee on either side of Alphonse’s hips. “Alphonse, this… Just try to relax. I’ve got you.”

Alphonse wriggles a little more, glancing up at him, already flushed and breathless, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. Roy’s inhibitions salute sharply and then disintegrate. “G… General?”

Roy brushes Alphonse’s bangs out of his face. “Forgive me,” he says.

Alphonse’s narrow chest heaves a few times, and Roy drags his hands lightly down it as he shifts back, settling his weight between Alphonse’s knees. He gives himself one last moment to wonder if he’s really going to go through with this, and then he curls his index fingers in the waistband of Alphonse’s shorts and draws them down.

The whimper that trickles out from between Alphonse’s lips when the cool air hits his cock sounds like a plea. _Fuck_ ; Roy’s suddenly so hard he can’t think, can barely see past the tiny-perfect body, pale and warm and toned. The coarse hairs at the base of Alphonse’s thickening cock are the color of cinnamon, and Roy just _breaks_ —gives up, gives in, lets go, runs his tongue slowly up the underside, tracing a vein, lathing, licking, working his tongue into the slit at the tip. Alphonse’s hands clench in the sheet, and the cry that escapes him is high and keening, resonating deep in Roy’s gut; he settles his palm over the boy’s left hipbone to hold it still while he leaves wet trails up and down and all the way around.

Alphonse’s back arches high off of the bed when Roy stops exploring and takes the whole of Alphonse’s erection into his watering mouth. Roy likes games as much as the next sick fuck—more, probably—but now isn’t the time; he pushes himself up on one arm and then sinks down, touching the biggest pulsating vein with his tongue again. Subjecting the base of Alphonse’s cock to just a hint of teeth gets him a hoarse, half-stifled scream, and he soothes the delicate skin with a smudged wet kiss. Judging by the rasping gasps of breath and the force with which Alphonse’s hips strain against Roy’s pinioning forearm, he won’t last long.

He catches a glimpse of a white-knuckled fistful of sheets before he ducks to take Alphonse in to the back of his throat this time. The heat of his mouth alone sends a stuttering shudder up the boy’s spine, and Roy makes sure his hair trails lightly over Alphonse’s stomach as he tilts his head, changing the angle, lifting his tongue. He sucks intently, stabilizing the pressure, maintaining the suction; it’s a science; it’s an art—he raises his head and breathes against the tip, bears down again; rises, drops, rises, drops, murmurs in his throat—

Alphonse sobs like…

A child.

He comes with one of Roy’s hands splayed on his abdomen and the other wrapped around his thigh, with tears sparking on his red cheeks, with his bangs plastered to his forehead and his heels pushing for purchase in the sheets. Roy holds tight and keeps lapping gently well after the last pulse, kissing softly once he’s swallowed the sharp-sweet mouthful. His brain and his morals, elbows linked, decide to make an appearance as he tucks Alphonse back into his shorts and crawls back up to lie beside him on the bed.

Suddenly his head is light. _This didn’t happen. It couldn’t possibly. I’m losing my mind._ He reaches out to wrap an arm around the shaking little body—he can still taste the sweat, still smell the young-nascent musk—and hesitates.

Alphonse makes a weak sound and curls in against his chest, fumbling to grip his shirt.

“Oh, God,” Alphonse gasps out. “General… th-thank… you…”

He’s asleep before the tearstreaks dry.

The brothers have that in common, too, as Roy had been betting on. Edward used to pass out before they were even disentangled, face buried in the pillow, leaving Roy to extract his limbs around the automail and admire the latest set of bruises that he would have thought he’d mind.

Roy holds the younger Elric for a long time, gently running his fingers through the tousled bangs. Alphonse nestles in a little closer and mumbles something that must be “Ed.”

“Yeah,” Roy mutters back, tucking a few damp strands behind Alphonse’s ear. “When he finds out, we’re both dead men.”

 

 

Al feels himself taking a deep breath, and then he opens his eyes. He latches his suitcase, looks at it for a moment, and then turns to Ed. Brother has his left hand in his pocket, the right one hanging loosely at his side.

“You’re sure about this,” he says softly.

“I told you I was,” Alfons says with a smile that’s steadier than he expects. “And I am.”

“You’ve got everything?”

“I should be asking you that question,” Alfons says. “ _I’m_ not the one who showed up to Doctor Oberth’s class having forgotten to bring any kind of writing implement three days in a row.”

“Oh,” Ed says. There’s a touch of pink in his cheeks, and he tries to distract from it with a grin. “I meant to admit later that that was a shameless strategy for starting a conversation. I had six pencils at the bottom of my bag.”

Alfons stares. Then he feels his face going warmer than Ed’s. “Oh,” he says. “Um.”

Ed worries his lip, still grinning a little. “Yeah,” he says. “Anyway—are you all set?” He reaches into his breast pocket, recovers two slips of paper, and waves them a bit.

“I was about to ask if you had the tickets,” Alfons says.

“Trains and I go way back,” Ed says. He spins on his heel, and his ponytail swings as he starts for the door, slapping the tickets lightly against the palm of his prosthetic hand. “Hohenzollern Castle, here we come. God, my dad is such an _asshole_.”


	4. Escape Velocity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stop – Heiderich time.

There’s one little hand stroking at his hair and one shaking his shoulder. Roy winches his eye open, blinks, blinks again, and manages to focus on Alphonse’s face, centimeters from his, bright eyes staring.

“What time is the first train to Central?” Alphonse asks.

Roy’s response is best approximated “Nngh hm?”

“We’re going to Central,” Alphonse says. “Today.”

“…the fuck time is it?” Roy slurs.

“I made breakfast,” Alphonse says. “Come on, General. You’re a tactician; you must have the train schedules memorized just in case.”

“Nine-thirty,” Roy’s brain produces. “If we leave soon after dawn at a quick-march—”

“Perfect,” Alphonse says, kissing the tip of his nose and then frolicking over to the fireplace. “You’ll have just enough time to pack.”

“I met your father once,” Roy mumbles, prying his shadowed jaw off of the pillow. “Should’ve decked him for producing you two when I had the chance.”

Alphonse is serving porridge and pauses to laugh. The sound should be grating so unholily early, but the Elrics defy expectation as a matter of course. “From what I understand,” Alphonse says, “you’d have to wait until Brother had hit him first.”

“Your brother was there,” Roy says, climbing down and convincing his legs that it’s time to function. “He wasn’t exactly spouting greeting card slogans, but to be fair, I’d riled him up in advance.”

Liore was a disaster. Seven _thousand_ able-bodied soldiers vanished—into the Stone, Roy had suspected, a supposition Marcoh’s obtuse notes had later confirmed. The Elrics on the run, because seven thousand souls’ incalculable power had been poured inside Alphonse’s hollow chest. Roy thinking, over and over, that this was it—this was him and Fullmetal, finished, over, through. That if Edward couldn’t trust him enough to tell him what had happened, anything they’d had was a pretense at best. That it was his fault for lying about Liore the first time, trying to protect him, trying to polish that big-hearted innocence to an immaculate sheen.

It was a nice thought—the idea of becoming a repository of things two children shouldn’t have to know. But Roy’s nice thoughts rarely panned out. He wouldn’t have lasted two weeks in politics if he’d ever believed they would.

Then the look on Edward’s face when Roy and his team cornered them in the forest near Resembool—the betrayal. The desperation. The hurt. Catching him alone in the Rockbells’ house before moving out to head off the patrol, and not knowing what to say—not knowing what there _was_ to say. Edward’s tongue sweeping over his upper lip, his left shoulder rising. _I really… don’t need this right now. There’s too much else going on, Colonel. I just need you on my side, okay?_ Bewildered blinking at the shade of Roy’s feelings that filtered through to his face. _What? Oh, you—for fuck’s sake, Colonel; I don’t need a_ lecture _. Or a declaration of love. Or sex, or—whatever. There isn’t time, that’s all._ The smile that stabbed straight through Roy’s chest every time and stuck out, dripping, on the other side. The soft one. Wistful. _And… honestly, I don’t know how things are gonna go. So… just… be on my side. I’m on yours._ A hug so tight it left automail imprints on the small of his back and a short, messy kiss.

They’d met once more, the last day, when Edward jumped down in front of the car as Roy and Riza started towards the Führer’s estate. Once the bickering and colluding were both out of the way, there wasn’t much left to be said. Riza gave Roy a _look_ in the rearview mirror—a look he’d never gotten before, but he was fluent enough in the language to guess what it meant.

“Hey,” he said, clambering out after the boy whose narrow shoulders carried everything. “I—”

“Yeah,” Edward said, shoving his hands into his pockets and glancing over his shoulder at the road. “There’s a pretty good chance one or both of us will die.”

Roy did this to him. Roy took his raw pain and burgeoning talent and fashioned him into a soldier, baptized him in blood.

Edward shrugged. “The stakes have never been low, though, and that’s okay.” He smiled, the other one that made a Roy’s-internal-organs-kebab—a tired smile. Old. “If I did it again, I think… I wouldn’t change much.” He reached out and pushed playfully at Roy’s chest. “I certainly wouldn’t change you, even if you are a total bastard sometimes, since that’s what you don’t have the balls to ask.”

Roy wrapped him into both arms and tried to memorize his shape, his warmth, his scent, the exact shade of gold his hair turned with the sunset painting highlights down his back.

Edward pulled away, smiling gently now. “Man up, Colonel,” he said. “I’ll see you around.” He was off and running, and then he paused. “Oh, yeah,” came the call over one shoulder. “I guess I’m supposed to say I love you and stuff. But you already know that, so get to work.”

And then he was gone.

And this is what remains.

Roy spoons down some porridge, barely tasting it—not that there’s much to taste—and tosses everything he’ll need into the rucksack he brought to basic, once upon another life. He was young, and pure, and naïve back then. He believed that things would turn out for the better, that the universe was kind. He believed in justice. He believed that he, personally, had a right to happiness. He believed in blue skies and best friends and truth and magic; in Equivalent Exchange and love, love, love. Idealism burned white and blue in the center of his chest.

Maybe—maybe with this bag on his back, with no colors on his chest, no stars on his shoulders, and a flashbang of sharp edges and unfulfilled potential at his side—maybe there’s one spark left.

Thirty-four isn’t too old to go down in flames.

 

 

Al’s ready.

The General doesn’t talk this time, as they step out into the snow-dampened, slowly-dying night and start for the city. But his eye is alight in a way Al’s never seen, and either he grew taller overnight, or he’s standing up straighter than he has since Al arrived. Everything is falling into place.

Except… there’s a problem. Well, there are several facets of a single problem, which all sort of manifest as separate issues, unless one is listing problems by way of categories, in which case they’re technically…

Al blows out a misty breath and watches it disappear.

The problem is that the General is still in love with Ed, and Ed is still in love with him, but also a little bit in love with other-Alphonse; and other-Alphonse is _deeply_ in love with him; and Al is in love with Ed and also kind of the General too. And the General did wicked and wonderful things to Al last night, so he must not be entirely indifferent.

The whole thing is simultaneously somewhat funny and quite distressing.

Al slept soundly for most of the night, long enough to join Ed and other-Alphonse in running to catch their train (somehow Al knows that’s _very_ much like Brother) and laughing giddily when they made it in the nick of time. The countryside started streaming by out the windows, and after a stern inspector checked their tickets and did a double-take more alarming than amusing at Ed’s eyes, the two young men settled and relaxed.

As much as Ed has ever been able to relax, that is. Alfons watched his flesh fingers tapping on the windowsill, his right foot jogging, his eyes flicking to one piece of scenery and then another.

“Are you all right?” Alfons asked.

“Just getting into the right frame of mind,” Ed said. “It’s been a while since my last expedition. It’s not something you forget, exactly, but… you know. It’s like remembering all the formulas and knowing how to solve them but not being sure your hand’ll move fast enough to write everything on the exam.”

“You sound like you expect something to go wrong,” Alfons said—but he was smiling, so he must have been accustomed to Ed.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Ed said, grinning back. “I’d be kinda disappointed if nothing did.”

The train rattled on down the track, and Ed was quiet for a moment, fiddling with the collar of his shirt.

“If… we do get back,” he said; “if I trade in all my bad luck, and it somehow works out… There’s something I haven’t told you about.” He swallowed. “Some _one_ , really.”

Alfons was silent, but Al could feel his heart pounding.

“Back home, there was… Well, it’s a little bit crazy. I mentioned I was in the army, right? This guy was my commanding officer. And he could be kind of a scheming bastard, but he was always looking out for my brother and me, and… he could also be kind of a gentleman, too. Smooth like Gracia’s jam—and sweeter when he wanted. So he and I had a… thing… for a while. And it was… nice. It was really nice.” He drew a deep breath and blew it out so that his bangs danced. “Anyway, I don’t even know if he’s still alive over there—probably, because he’s _really_ hard to take down, and I’m talking from actual battle experience here—or if he… I mean, he had literally eight girlfriends in a week once, so he’s probably moved on, but… I just wanted to warn you that I’m going to be coming back to a whole lot of history. Of course I’m gonna take care of you, Alfons, but… I figured you ought to hear about that from me first.”

Alfons sat very still for a moment, and then he stood, wobbled on the train’s unsteady floor, and sat down next to Ed. He took Ed’s flesh hand in both of his and clasped it gently.

“This gentleman of yours,” Alfons said. “He has good taste.”

Ed squeezed Alfons’s hands and mustered a grin. “Oh, he’s gonna _love_ you.”

The General nudges Al’s shoulder as the sun drags itself up from the horizon. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Al says. “I’m thinking.”

“What about, if it’s not too private?”

“What the heck we’re going to do when Brother comes back with my other-world double.”

The General actually trips and falls face-first into the snow at that, so even though Al said he’d explain everything on the train, he gets started while they walk to apologize.

Al offers a fairly edited version of events, omitting details like the fact that a certain late ex-lover and best friend is still alive across an apparently flimsy barrier, and that the doctor in Resembool told Al that the dreams were hallucinations caused by the lack of sleep. Even so, the General takes the news extremely well.

“That’s what you meant about timelines yesterday,” he says. “And whether or not they’re exactly synchronous.”

No more messing around with qualifiers; Al is in love with him. “Yeah. I assume that there’s some leeway, since the Gate itself must be _outside_ of time somehow.” He starts to rub at his eyes and then remembers that he’s wearing ignition gloves now, and he has to be careful—both not to strike a spark on his own face, and not to scratch a retina with the fabric. “In any case, the sooner we get to Central and pull the two worlds together, the sooner we get Brother back.”

“And… the other Alphonse,” the General says. “That concerns me, if he’s coming from a world without alchemy and is going to have to adju—”

“He’s an Elric,” Al says. “Or near enough.”

Instead of arguing, the General smiles. “Excellent point.”

They’ve reached the outskirts of North City by the time Al concedes that perhaps he hasn’t done _all_ of his research, and the General concedes that Al should be able to figure out the right array from watching Ed’s side of things.

“I take it you’ll be trying to sleep on the train, then,” the General says. Al is sixty percent sure the gleam in his eye is mischievous rather than repentant. “Keep in mind that it would be much more difficult for me to help you there.”

Al blinks. “After such a long walk so early,” he says, “I’m sure I’ll be fine if you let me lay my head on your lap.”

The General’s cheeks have been pink for most of the journey because of the wind, but Al _knows_ he sees them go a shade darker at that. He’d award himself some imaginary points, but he’s long since lost track of who’s winning this game.

 

 

Listening was easy. Understanding was a challenge. Accepting has, so far, proved impossible.

A part of Roy—a large part of him, most of him, everything that reasoned—had relegated Edward to the category of things he’s lost. The few fragments that held out maintained their position on the grounds that Edward Elric was the single stubbornest human being ever conceived, and anyone that obstinate was probably incapable of dying. But it was better—safer, wiser, healthier—to try to let go. To cherish the memories and crush the hope. To move on. To keep going. To run for his life and his sanity if it came to that.

What the hell is he supposed to do now?

Some part of him started believing, though, when Alphonse arrived and made the oath even before he hung up his coat. _I’ll find him_. Edward would have to be somewhere to be found; he would have to be alive. And suddenly the tide of the battle in Roy’s heart has changed.

There are many things Edward taught him, too many to number. One of them is humility.

It’s been four years, and the hardest part— _bringing_ him back—is yet to come. Roy is not taking anything for granted. He’s not making any assumptions. He has a lot of practice settling for less than what he wants.

To dab some whipping cream on top of his shitstorm sundae, there is _another Alphonse_. The world is almost certainly not ready for _another Alphonse_ ; it seems to be having enough trouble with this one. Roy sympathizes.

The version Roy has lately come to know is bouncing on the balls of his feet, arms wrapped around himself, breath curling out in wispy tendrils as they wait on the platform. There is a throbbing at the back of Roy’s skull, and a very different one in the pit of his stomach. He wants to push the lithe, limber boy up against the stone wall and kiss him until he fights free; wants to pin him down on that bench and shove a knee between his thighs; wants to lay the new charcoal-colored coat right out on the ice and see how long they could go before their appendages froze. He never should have crossed that line, never should have gone that far. Now he’s tasted an illicit delicacy, and he’d kill for the chance to glut himself.

So much for self-control. Four years of snow and solitude have just worn his will to the point of brittleness; there’s been nothing here to resist.

He’s trying not to think about the complications that will ensue if they succeed in pulling Edward back into Amestris, where he belongs. He’s trying not to think about the moment a nineteen-year-old Edward Elric, a young god flushed with power, blazing golden, fully grown and wholly poised, looks at him and sees the sad, bedraggled failure consigned to hermitage. He’s trying not to think that the only thing they’ll have to talk about is the fact that Roy inaugurated Edward’s beloved little brother into the world of sex with an unsolicited blowjob and a pat on the head. He’s trying not to think about the rather strong likelihood that he’s going to get his other eye torn out for that.

Too much has changed. What does he have left of any value?

Alphonse grabs his hand as the train pulls in from the railyard, puffing hard, frost melting from the metal. Roy tugs him towards the front-most car; it’ll save them a few moments when they reach Central, as they’ll start out deeper into the station, and moments could matter if they’re reprising the good old days.

Alphonse watches the snowbound, silent world slipping away from them for a while, and then he drops onto the bench seat and, as promised, snuggles up with Roy’s thigh. Roy thinks the word _inevitable_ should be altered in the dictionary to _inelricable_ , and he strokes absently at Alphonse’s hair. A woman in a fur coat gets on at a station two hours in, spots them, assesses Roy’s uniform and the slight frame draped on his lap, and gives him the dirtiest look he’s ever received—including the ones from Edward, and the ones from that piece of shit Archer when Roy had him trapped.

The affront is good, though. The pain of guilt is good. It confirms to Roy that this is actually happening, that he’s actually here. It’s not some intricate fever dream cooked up by his half-frozen, agonizingly lonesome little brain.

He tucks the dark gray coat a little closer around Alphonse’s shoulders, settles down with the research notes he’s encoded as a logbook, and smiles faintly. Come what may, he’s headed home.

 

 

“…going to love alchemy,” Ed is saying as Al teeters into a dark night in a darker forest, the grit of the steep pathway scraping under his shoes. His suitcase feels heavy, and his head feels light. “And, I mean—well, physics still _applies_ , of course; all the same universal laws are still in place. People just don’t study it as much. You and I could start a whole new branch of the research department for that, you know—physics, physics and alchemy, physics _of_ alchemy.” He laughs, and Alfons’s skittering heart warms. “That actually sounds pretty damn awesome. I bet we could get Mustang to sign off. Hell, all of Amestris owes me one.”

Alfons flattens his free hand on his chest, wishing he could delve it inside and fix his lungs, make them kinder, make them cooperate. “The words… you use,” he manages. “They’re so… wild.”

It’s Hughes’s word, but it’s been circling like a carrion bird in Alfons’s head. This is wild, isn’t it? It’s rash and uncivilized, ludicrous and lunatic, and there’s a feral gleam in Ed’s hot yellow eyes that makes Alfons shiver in so many ways—like something inside of that surprisingly powerful mismatched body, something caged and muzzled, has been released.

This is all new to Alfons. He’s a city boy. He’s always played by the rules. He’s always clung to them, actually; physics and mathematics make _sense_ , and if you follow their laws, you can do anything. Shouldn’t it be the same for life, for society, for humankind? Shouldn’t toeing the line and obeying the statutes set before you guarantee success?

Except… except for Ed. Some part of Alfons always knew that Ed was different at a _basic_ level—far deeper than his bones; it’s in his _atoms_. Ed swept in, hurricane-resplendent, with his cat’s eyes glowing and his hair whipping like a tongue of flame. Ed argued with Einstein, doubted tenets, shook the foundations, believed nothing and no one but science and progress and proof. Alfons has never told Ed that he’s the reason they finished the first phase of the rocket program before Alfons fell too ill to implement the second—because his sheer energy was invigorating; because he was bright and new and brilliant; because he challenged every fundamental only to turn around and make outlandish leaps of theoretical faith. Because he was the textbook definition of an inspiration.

Alfons anticipates regretting this—this _world-hopping_ , if that’s what he should call it. He anticipates a lot of things going awry. He anticipates repercussions beyond Ed’s most pessimistic reckoning, as while Alfons has always favored the thought of flying in a rocket, Ed seems to prefer flying by the seat of his pants.

But he knows, like he knew that it was his last afternoon in Munich. He knows that Edward Elric will make it right.

Ed has stopped in order to look at Alfons concernedly, reaching out with his left hand. “Are you okay? We should slow down. Sorry the stupid thing’s so high-up—I guess that makes sense for a castle, but… Take it easy. No real rush.”

Alfons’s face goes a little warm as Ed’s hand chafes gently up and down his arm, but with any luck the dark will hide that. He’s just caught his breath when something _roars_ , and a blinding light sears out of the woods beside them, and they both scream like children.

When the first flare of panic has been snuffed, Alfons realizes that the hulking, stalking monster is, in fact, a car. Moreover, it’s a car driven by a bearded man who wears his hair long and tied back, very much li…

Oh. _Oh_.

“ _What the everloving fuck, Dad_?” Ed shouts, right on cue.

Ed’s father carefully guides the car out onto the dirt path and then leans over the door to blink at Ed in some bewilderment. “I just… thought you might like a ride up. It’s a long walk.”

“ _So you waited in the dark and then gunned the fucking engi_ —”

Alfons catches Ed’s shoulder. “Hey—it’s all right. He only startled us, and he has a point.”

Ed’s father is staring at him. “Young man, you… your eyes…”

“Yeah,” Ed says, snidely at best, although he holds the car door for Alfons and manages a quick smile for him. “Hohenheim of Light, Alfons Heiderich. Alfons, this is my… sperm donor.”

Mr. Hohenheim (Mr. Light?) doesn’t appear to hear the second half of Ed’s introduction, which is probably a good thing. He’s smiling at Alfons, two parts rueful and one part enigmatic. “I should have known,” he says. “I should have known from the start that you’d find him.”

Make that one part rueful, one part enigmatic, and one part unsettling.

“Had to find somebody,” Ed says, jumping in next to Alfons and slamming the door, “since you up and disappeared on me. _Again_. Where the fuck do you get off abandoning your children every decade or so? I’m just lucky you left me some cash this time—and _really_ lucky I ran into Alfons, who happens to be the master of getting university grants.”

Ed’s father is quiet for a moment, and the car begins to grind up the incline. “I was working on this. On getting you home.” Alfons glances over, and Ed’s face has gone pale and still in the light cast by the headlamps. “I had some… false starts, you might say. I’m afraid I can’t make guarantees—and you wouldn’t believe them, would you?—but I hold out hope that this time, I’ve done it right.”

Ed is leaning far back into the seat, his arms tightly folded across his chest, and looking out at the dimly-outlined forest shifting by. “Guess we’ll see,” he says.

“Thank you for your help, sir,” Alfons says, because Ed never will.

Mr. Hohenheim’s smile is audible in his voice. “It’s the least I can d—”

“You’re damn right it is,” Ed mutters.

Alfons hadn’t realized that Ed avoided talking about his father because it sends him into a whirlwind of surliness and rage. With that in mind, his extremely obvious subject-changes in previous conversations were probably for his friends’ protection, and for that of any breakable objects in reach.

“So what’s your brilliant plan?” Ed asks when Mr. Hohenheim draws the car up in an open space beside the castle wall.

Mr. Hohenheim kills the engine and the lights. “I never said it was brilliant.” He gets out of the car and opens the trunk, from which he lifts a large crossbow and a quiver full of bolts.

Ed’s eyes widen, and then his grin does. “ _Now_ we’re talkin’, old man.”

Mr. Hohneheim does not look so amused. Instead, he looks like a stern father—which would most likely propel Ed into a seething fury if he wasn’t too busy fumbling with the buckles on his suitcase to notice.

“Mr. Heiderich,” Hohenheim says, “are you… going with him?”

“That was the hope, sir,” Alfons says.

Hohenheim settles the strap of the quiver over his chest, adjusting it around the cowled neck of his shirt. “Edward, are you sure that’s wise?”

“You lost your right to tell me what to do the second you fucking walked out on us,” Ed says without even looking up, shifting items in his suitcase. “If Alfons still wants to come, I’m bringing him with me.”

Hohenheim hesitates. “Even if we succeed in creating a working portal—and that alone would qualify as a bit of a miracle—I’m not sure it will have the structural integrity to carry tw—”

“Gotcha!” Ed says, raising what looks like the lovechild of a sharpened spade and a polio brace. He fits it onto his right arm—using his left hand to manipulate his metal fingers and tighten their grip on a small bar near the front—and the strange concave blade juts out over his clenched fist. He vaults over the car door and drops into a crouch, taking a few experimental punches. “And _you_ wouldn’t make me an arm extension like this,” he sneers to his father. “‘Too violent,’ you said. ‘When would you ever need it?’, you said. Well, how do you like me now, Dad?”

“Often I fail to understand how such a remarkably gentle woman as your mother and I could produce a boy who’s part wildcat,” Hohenheim says dryly.

“Shut up,” Ed says, although his tone is almost loving, perhaps because he’s stroking the blade that now protrudes from his wrist. “So what’s this dumbass plan of yours?”

“The individual you know as Envy made it through the Gate,” Hohenheim says.

Ed stops slashing at the air, eyeing his father uncertainly. Meanwhile, Alfons’s head spins like a well-balanced top.

“As a dragon,” Hohenheim says.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Ed says.

Something roars—something that is _definitively_ not a car.

“Oh, crap,” Ed says. “Heads up, Alfons. This… is going to be interesting.”

Calmly, Hohenheim fits a bolt into his crossbow and tests its sharpened silver tip with a finger. “‘Interesting’ is one word for it. Not the one I would have chosen, of course.”

“I said shut _up_ ,” Ed grits out.

And then something _huge_ —something massive and sinuous and terrifying, something out of a nightmare, something that makes nightmares look like fairytales—soars over the castle wall.

Its vast mouth gapes open, lined with teeth longer than Alfons’s arm; its eyes flare violet, and its slavering tongue is red.

“ _Hohenheim_!” it screams.

Alfons scrambles over the door, barely holding onto his suitcase, and dives under the car.

“Boys!” Hohenheim says sharply, ducking as a rush of air buffets the vehicle, and another guttural roar emanates from much too close. “I’ve started painting the circle and camouflaged my progress, but I need more time. You have to distract him for a while.”

“This kind of shit is exactly why I hate you!” Ed bursts out.

“I know,” Hohenheim says. “I’m sorry.”

He dashes across the gravel and shoulders his way through a broad wooden door in the wall.

“ _Hohenheim_!” the monster howls again. “I’ve scoured every corner of this pathetic planet for your miserable corpse, and _this ends now_!”

“What—what—” Alfons’s vocal chords don’t seem to be willing to produce any other words.

Ed’s crouched near the trunk of the car, and his eyes are tracking the dragon’s sinuous approach. “You know that story I wrote, that you helped me get published in that magazine? About the evil witch Dante and her seven minions?”

“Yes,” Alfons says, unable to stop staring at the mass of moving coils, clutching the handle of his suitcase, breathing in the dust even though he knows he’d better not.

“Well, that was true,” Ed says. “All of my stories were. God, I _hate_ my dad. Come on!”

The sequence of non sequiturs ends with Ed grabbing Alfons’s free hand, hauling him out from under the car, and hurling them both to the ground beside it. The dragon swoops low, sinking its teeth into the rear of the car—the metal squeals but punctures like warm clay, and Alfons has just enough presence of mind for terror—and then flings the whole vehicle sideways off the cliff.

“No more hide-and-seek!” The creature thrashes furiously, and then its cold eyes find them. “ _Elrics_!”

Somehow Alfons doesn’t think that correcting the dragon about his surname will lead it to apologize and slink off into the forest.

“ _Move_!” Ed says, dragging them both to their feet, and they sprint for the corner of the castle wall. They swing around it, and Alfons spots a gate—Ed, too, judging by the way he pelts for it, towing Alfons by the wrist. Scales scrape on the gravel, and a low growl rumbles behind them, and then Ed’s hacked straight through the padlock and hauled them inside, instants before the huge green body slams against the wall, jaws snapping shut. Alfons doesn’t have the breath to scream as the creature shifts, and the purple eyes glare in through the open gate, but then Ed’s dragging them up a staircase and into a corridor.

“I d-don’t remember a dragon in the Dante s-story,” Alfons pants as they pause by a window, Ed peering out with his arm-blade raised.

“Envy’s the shapeshifter,” Ed says, in a tone indicating that such statements seem perfectly commonplace to him. “I guess he changed while he was moving through the Gate, and when he reached this world, he got stuck.” Ed’s eyes narrow. “I’m gonna beat his ass six ways from Sunday. He’s the one who killed me—with a fucking cheap shot.”

On second thought, perhaps Alfons is not entirely prepared for the goings-on in this Amestris place.

Before he can say that—or, more likely, blankly gasp out, “Oh”—the window smashes, shards raining down, a wash of green beyond the windowpane. Ed slashes with his makeshift sword, earning a spatter of blood and a thunderous roar, and then he seizes Alfons’s hand, and they race down the hall again.

“Come and get me, ugly!” Ed shouts over his shoulder.

There’s a dizzyingly tight spiral staircase and several doors, which Ed makes briskly short work of. Alfons’s chest burns, and his vision is starting to go a feathery black at the edges; his breath stings in his throat, but he has to—he has to—

They emerge onto a low wall overlooking the courtyard. Alfons’s first hazy observation is that the orange stone, warm even in the starlight, draped with ivy and tipped with delicately pointed shale roofs, is stunningly beautiful and a tribute to the pride of Germany.

His second, less-hazy observation is that the dragon is bearing down on Ed’s father in the middle of a strange, circular design, and Hohenheim’s crossbow bolts don’t seem to have any effect but for piquing its rage.

“ _Hey, asshole_!” Ed calls. “Pick on someone from your own generation!”

Before Alfons can figure out how Ed and a horrifying dragon can possibly share anything other than their bad tempers, the creature snarls up at them—and then undulates nearer to Ed’s father, mouth a chasm of gleaming teeth.

Ed plants his left hand between the crenellations, and—

“ _Don’t_!” Alfons cries.

It’s too late—Ed’s cleared the wall. He sails through the air, coat flapping, and plunges the blade on his arm straight through the dragon’s scales; it anchors him as he scrabbles for a handhold. The monster screams, writhing, but Ed keeps his grip and swings a leg over the frill along its spine.

“Alfons!” he yells. “Find me something to kill thi— _whoa_!”

The dragon twists and rolls, and Ed clings to its back.

“Don’t kill him!” Hohenheim shouts, running beneath them, dodging the coils, with what appears to be a paintbrush in the hand not holding the crossbow. “Keep him over the circle!”

“ _God damn it, Dad_!” Ed howls.

Alfons runs for the nearest turret, fighting to keep his hammering heart inside his chest. The suitcase knocks against his knees; he can feel the bruises beginning to form, but there isn’t time to worry about it—he skids to a stop in front of an open window overlooking the courtyard, sets the suitcase on the floor, and battles with the latches. A sharp bit of brass slices his fingertip, but then he’s popped them; he rummages helplessly through his clothes, through the books— _come on, come on_ —

“ _Alfons_!” Ed screams.

Cold metal greets his hand, and he tears Officer Hughes’s pistol free of one of his shirts.

His heartbeat sounds very slow in his ears as he pushes himself up to his feet, kicks the suitcase aside, and positions himself in the middle of the window. Distantly he hears Ed screaming, Mr. Hohenheim shouting, the beast roaring like a pack of fiends. He wraps both hands around the butt of the gun, raises it, and levels it carefully. He closes one eye. He calculates.

People have been telling Alfons Heiderich that he’s a physics genius since he was seven years old. The moment that a bullet pierces the dragon’s violet eye, just off-center to the left, is the first time in his life that he believes it.

There’s a spurt of blood and an Earth-shaking bellow, and the monster winches its damaged eye shut and flings its head back and forth in agony, blood seeping between the eyelids and rolling down its scales.

Alfons swallows, struggles to steady his breathing, and lines up another shot. This time his hand trembles—his wrists are aching from the recoil, which doesn’t help—and the bullet sinks into the monster’s cheek, just missing the lizard-like fin. Alfons chokes down the first deep, ominous itch of a wracking cough, kneels, and braces the gun on the windowpane. He takes his time, sights his target, does the math, does it again, and—

“ _You bastards_!” the monster screams, blinded now, blood flowing from both eyes; this bullet almost arced down and landed too low, but it served its purpose. Alfons can see Ed, grim-faced, hauling himself up the writhing creature’s back, jamming his blade in for handholds. “ _Hohenheim_!”

Speaking of Ed’s father, he has almost finished… something. Something that tickles at the back of Alfons’s skull.

There’s a different tickle in his chest—a bad one.

He careens down the closest staircase and bursts out into the courtyard, but his heart’s pounding like a piston, and his head is swimming, and his lungs convulse. The sudden unbalance almost knocks him out—well, it does, but only for a second; he comes to on his hands and knees, and his diaphragm slams upward, and he coughs like he used to, before Ed worked some kind of magic no other doctor could.

Except… this is worse.

He tries to direct it into his sleeve at first; just after he registers that the fabric is wet and sticking to his skin, it’s too violent to endure without both hands planted on the ground. Blurrily he watches the puddle swelling on the cobblestones; there’s a thin cord of pink saliva dribbling from his lips. The blood is not bright and red like it used to be; it’s dark and clotted and thick.

He drags his forearm across his mouth and fumbles for the gun lying on the stones beside him. He doesn’t know how many shots he has left. He assumes that a Luger round is six; isn’t that true of most handguns? But he doesn’t know if Officer Hughes loaded it fully—or reloaded it; he might have fired it once, or twice, or even three times. This could be an empty piece of metal, not a weapon, not a tool. He might be useless.

He can just see Ed, on the ground now, slashing at the monster’s belly—deep gouges that spray red and make the dragon screech and sway. Is this the real Edward Elric? Is that who he is?

Like a boxer he darts away from a new gush of gore, and then Mr. Hohenheim is racing back from the far end of the courtyard, unarmed. He seizes Ed’s elbow and tows him back towards Alfons. “It’s done! Don’t provoke him any more!”

“ _Provoke_?” Ed jerks against Hohenheim’s grip. “He’s the reason I got trapped here in the first place!”

Is that really what he th—

“ _Alfons_!”

Almost all of the fake skin has melted off of Ed’s right arm with the motor running for this long, but his other hand is urgent and gentle, and his voice is terrified.

“Alfons, holy shit! Look at me—come on, please— _Alfons_ —”

Alfons lets himself be pulled to his feet, but he doesn’t look at Ed—he looks over Ed’s right shoulder. He balances the barrel of the gun on the plate of the prosthetic, nudges his mind to do the work one more time, and fires into the open jaws descending towards Ed’s voice.

Another splash of blood; another scream.

“Step back!” Hohenheim says. “The portal is going to form directly above the circle. I’ve tried to design it so that it’ll pull you in—”

Ed drags Alfons a few steps back from the black paint on the stones. “Stay with me,” he says, and his eyes are wet. Alfons tries to raise a hand to touch the curve of Ed’s cheek, but he’s so tired… “Listen—there’s a Gate inside you, okay? And you have to find it and open it as we go through the big one. I’m going to do everything I can to help you, but you have to _hold on_. Come with me, Alfons. Please.”

“I’d follow you anywhere,” Alfons says.

Hohenheim presses his palms to the painted lines.


	5. Convergence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey – thank you. ♥

It’s remarkable how little ever _really_ changes. This is the same city it’s always been, a city lined and scarred and chafed like the back of Roy’s hand.

When the train slows as they near the station, he touches Alphonse’s shoulder, and the boy’s eyes fly open. He scrambles to sit up and curls a fist in the front of his shirt, gasping for air, glancing around himself wildly. Something registers, and the gaze that settles on Roy is alert—and edged with a sharp determination that’s very familiar.

“We have to hurry,” Alphonse says. “But I think I know how to make the circle.”

If anyone but an Elric had just calmly informed Roy that he _thought_ he’d sorted out the incredibly complicated formula for some extremely dangerous alchemy, Roy would be leaping out the window and trying his luck with the train tracks. As it is…

“Just lead the way,” he says.

The brakes squeal, and the train shudders to a stop. Alphonse is out of his seat and halfway down the aisle before anyone else has started to move.

Roy, catching up their coats and running after, intends to interpret this latest adventure as a challenge. If he fails, he’ll go back to the world of the North, where things are black and white (and frozen). If he succeeds, it’s time to have goals again. It’s time to have dreams. It’s time to move on, and up, and ahead.

The patter of Alphonse’s boots as he takes Central’s streets at a half-run draws them away from the train station, towards the crux of this whole strange journey. It’s been a process of thawing in more ways than Roy would like to consider.

After approximately half a mile, a woman with short dark hair steps out of an apartment complex, turns on the sidewalk, and stares at them.

“Oh!” Alphonse says, stopping short. “I know you, don’t I? Can you hold onto this?” He proffers his suitcase and beams his most irresistible smile.

Maria Ross blinks and then hesitantly reaches to take the handle. “Sure, Alphonse, what…” She spots Roy. “ _Sir_!”

“Second Lieutenant,” he says, wishing he could confirm the rank by her uniform. “Day off?”

“It was,” she says, blinking at Alphonse’s luggage.

“Thank you!” the boy says brightly. “Come on, General!”

Roy pauses, watching him start off jogging down the street. Then he turns to Ross again.

“Can you take these, too?” he asks of his bag and both of their winter coats.

Ross smiles. “They’ll be in your office,” she says.

Alphonse is getting quite a head-start, but Roy can’t help himself: “I don’t have an office.”

“Of course you do,” the second lieutenant says, adjusting the weight. “You just haven’t been in it lately.” She salutes sharply. “Sir.”

Roy smiles back. “None of that, Second Lieutenant—I owe you one.”

Hopefully, he thinks as he races after Alphonse, trying to take long strides, he’ll even get a chance to pay her back.

Unsurprisingly, Alphonse leads them directly to some godawful, rickety relic of a building in a dirty part of town. If their destination wasn’t creepy and questionable, Roy would know they’d made a mistake.

For a long moment, Alphonse gazes silently up at the rotted boards and colored glass. Then he squares his tiny shoulders and pushes through the doors. Figuring that there are much worse routes to hell, Roy follows without another thought.

“What is this place?” he asks, voice echoing, as they navigate around the long wooden benches in their fractured rows.

“Fletcher said it’s some kind of ancient temple,” Alphonse says. “And that Ed probably didn’t even close…”

The face of the podium at the end of the aisle has been transmuted into a low archway, and Roy can see stone stairs descending.

“Ah,” Alphonse says, and Roy’s still stupid enough to follow him down into the dark.

After five full minutes, the silence grows oppressively portentous, and Roy clears his throat. “I think this is bad for my knees.”

“You’re not _that_ old,” Alphonse says warmly, and Roy wonders vaguely why he’s trying to bring _another_ silky-haired cretin here to cut him down with comebacks.

He focuses on running a fingertip very lightly along the wall—his depth perception obviously isn’t what it used to be, and whatever they’re headed for won’t benefit from broken bones. “Did the Tringhams know how far we have to go?”

“That’s easy,” Alphonse says. “We have to go the distance it takes to get there.”

Roy rolls his eye, not that it matters in the dark. “That’s terribly philosophical, but practically speaking, I’d prefer to know how to pace myself.”

“Trust me, General,” Alphonse says, and that’s the one thing Roy can’t quite bring himself to do. “You’re going to get a second wind if you need one.”

“Enough with the ominous bullshit,” Roy says. “What _exactly_ is down there, Alphonse?”

The impenetrable blackness and the silence conspire to leave Roy scrabbling for his bearings, but then Alphonse’s voice carries to him again.

“One of the last Homunculi,” he says. “Gluttony. But I think… I think he must have ingested some of the Philosopher’s Stone, and it’s… corrupted him, perhaps? Wrath was a bit unclear on that point, and Winry never got this far. How do you feel about a bit of pioneering, General?”

“I feel like I should have brought a weapon,” Roy says.

Alphonse’s laughter rings off of the claustrophobic stone. “You and I both know that you have your gloves in your breast pocket.”

The little _bastard_.

“And I suggest,” the sweet-voiced demon says as a faint light swells to illuminate the end of the passageway, “that you put them on.”

Roy Mustang, the venerable, the voluble, the insufferably suave, can’t think of a single thing to say except “God _damn_ it, Alphonse” as he slips his hand inside his uniform and retrieves them. His fingers tremble slightly as he tugs them into place, but that doesn’t come as much of a surprise. _Four years_. Four years without the smell of ozone sharp and biting on the back of his tongue; four years without trails of flame that sear and vanish like he’s writing his name on the fabric of the sky; four years without the twist-snap-rush that makes his whole chest fill as the air in his lungs heats and expands.

They emerge overlooking an entire city—a second city, submerged, subsumed, and forgotten. A city that looks different, looks strange, matches the temple and nothing else he’s ever seen. It’s caved to fit the space, curling up at the edges like a wide, gray, gaping smile.

“The precedent?” Roy asks. “For Liore?”

“Must have been,” Alphonse says. “Let’s make the circle and get this over with.”

They climb down one of the many odd, unsettling combinations of a topographical incline and a ruined building, tossed here and half-shattered. All Roy can think of, jumping at shadows, fingertips hovering close, is Edward forging into this underworld alone. _There’s a pretty good chance one or both of us will die._

They come out onto a plateau of some kind; whether it’s a courtyard designed by the original inhabitants or a result of the drop Roy doesn’t understand city-planning well enough to guess. Debris lies scattered across the open stone, and a shallow pond has gathered near an artificial cliff’s edge. The façade behind them, as Roy turns in a slow circle to survey, seems mostly intact.

Alphonse skips reconnaissance and moves straight on to action. He crouches, claps, and flattens his hands on the flooring; the word _genius_ flits through Roy’s mind, circling continuously, as a massive, inky-black array plasters itself on the pale stone.

The lines and whorls flare lightning-blue, spears of light rising around the bent form in the red coat, and then dwindle away. The scientist in Roy notices the details of the circle—the unusual curves, the odd angles, the cutouts and comma-shaped dark spots, their tails curling. The survivalist in him hears a rumble and feels the answering quaver under the floor.

“Get _down_!”

Alphonse looks up, startled, from his critical assessment of his project; Roy throws his body over the boy’s and pushes both of their heads towards the floor.

The shape that soars just over them and slams into the ground is pasty white and indescribably huge. Roy raises his head, and his grip on Alphonse’s coat tightens until his fingertips tingle.

“What,” he says, “ _is_ that thing?”

“Get him onto the circle,” Alphonse says. “That thing is Brother’s ticket home.”

 _Easier said than done_ crests the tip of Roy’s tongue, and then the grotesque behemoth swivels with gut-wrenching dexterity and starts towards them again.

Roy pulls them both to their feet and uses a fistful of Alphonse’s coat to drag him leftward just as the bloated monster barrels past—it moves at a good clip, but they’re such small targets that it hasn’t worked out the precision required to snatch them up in one of several slavering mouths. Sure enough, its sheer momentum sends it crashing into the nearest building, and stone crumbles at the impact.

“It’s heavy enough to _break_ your circle,” Roy says.

Alphonse’s little pink tongue runs over his lip. “Um. Darn.”

The homunculus shakes off dust and crawls back out of the wreckage unharmed. Roy isn’t sure what to compare it to—a spider, but with tentacle-tails like a squid, and then that _almost-human_ face—

He shoves Alphonse to the right—the side he can keep his eye on—and snaps his fingers to summon the flame.

Oh, God. Why did he ever forsake this?

The fire blossoms and billows outward from his hand, engulfing the monstrous white mass—and most of the surrounding rubble. Yes, it’s definitely been too long.

Gluttony charges out of the smoke, roaring low in that bloated throat, making the _air_ vibrate in a way that strikes a throbbing chord behind Roy’s ruined eye.

“Too slow,” Roy says, sliding just out of the way, leaping over one of the tails, kicking his left foot high to dodge the reach of impossible incisors. He flicks both wrists and snaps with both hands before his boots have even touched the ground; a narrow spurt of flame targets the creature’s primary eyes, and then it vanishes into another plume as Roy ignites it from filthy nose to the end of the longest whipping tail.

This time he earns the screaming roar he was looking for—the whole courtyard rattles with it, loose stone jittering everywhere, and the smoke floods upwards in burgeoning waves.

Roy gets a glimpse this time; the sick-white skin seared black and red, but it’s healing over fast. He runs to meet Gluttony’s onslaught again, and closer he can see the pink fluid oozing as the burns smooth over and the ungodly creature shifts.

He snaps, and Gluttony’s eyes burst again.

He snaps, and a coil of flame wraps around each of the snaking tails to set them alight.

He snaps, and the air combusts just as Gluttony rears; the weight of the body colliding with the ground sends a shockwave rolling, and Roy barely stays on his feet.

Laboriously the creature wrenches itself back up, planting its bulging hands on the cracked stone, snarling with all its mouths at once.

Roy grins. “I’m _back_ , bitches.”

Smoke twirls, and Roy snaps twice—Gluttony lashes out heedlessly, screaming; there are flames delving into its primary lungs, their brethren rippling all over its skin. Roy spares a glance and sees that Alphonse is kneeling by the circle, making adjustments and fixing the cracks in the floor. The boy glances up to meet Roy’s gaze and nods sharply once. Time to reel it in.

Roy gives the ravenous tails a wide berth as he circles the beast, jumping over the rubble, watching the dead white eyes that track him no matter where he runs. It’s been so long since he felt so fucking _alive_ that the whole damn thing is new; he’s young again, flushed with adrenaline, falling into the dance like he never left it, dealing out death. The smoke stings his eye; it tastes ashen; embers rain down; and his foe bleeds pink rivulets that splash into the pool behind it and crystallize.

The mad dash brings him behind Gluttony before the thing can wheel on him, and the tails lurch towards him, but he’s faster—snap, and they flame; he lets the first one burn and vaults over the second; the third he lights again. His boots squeal as he digs his heels in against the slick stone; he crosses his wrists and snaps twice, then twice more, and a bellowing Gluttony disappears into the smoke.

Roy starts to herd him towards the circle, snapping at intervals, guiding the flames, blasting the eyes, scalding the skin. Sweat breaks out on his forehead, but there isn’t time to swipe it away with his sleeve; the monster is stupid, but its instincts make up the rest—its bloodthirst is insatiable, and it’s _fast_.

Barring a retreat with a flaming wall, he pushes it nearer to Alphonse, trying to pin it down under a barrage of new attacks so that it won’t even think about lunging for the boy in the red coat instead of its tormentor. All this thing knows is how to kill—how to hunt, how to crush, how to eat. Roy darts out of the whipping path of the closest tail, snaps to light it as it moves; constant maintenance of the flames on its skin has been distracting the dull creature enough that it hasn’t even thought—

The second tail snarls loudly, and Roy spins, fingertips meeting; the third dives for him, and he throws himself aside. A large chunk of stone trips him, and he’s _down_ —and then the pain is unbelievable as its huge hand scoops him carelessly and hurls him against a wall.

There’s time for a cry, and then it’s dark.

 

 

“ _General_!”

No response. Not even a twitch.

Al takes off running, takes off towards the monster closing in on the crumpled body among the stone.

“Hey!” he screams at the top of his smoke-scorched lungs. “Hey, Gluttony! That’s your name, isn’t it?”

Not anymore. It’s just a thing—just something hungry. Soulless, if not mindless. Starving down here.

He draws another ragged breath, skids to a stop, and snaps his fingers.

Nothing.

The General would kill him; he wasn’t focused, wasn’t thinking, wasn’t watching the way the currents move in this cavernous space—

He snaps again, harder, gritting his teeth, and glares along the line he carves out of oxygen. Hot orange flies along the trajectory and bursts against Gluttony’s back, and finally—mere yards from the General’s unmoving form—it turns.

“That’s right,” Al says. “Right over here.”

He has to get it angry enough to leave the easy prey. He aims for it again, but it drops its huge body into a prowling stance, and the air whooshes out of Al’s control; the pocket just above Gluttony’s head explodes. The creature bares its teeth, but he has to do better than that—he tries it like the General did, furiously, snapping and snapping, but—

Brother would kill him, too; he’s such an idiot. Al claps his hands and slaps them onto the ground; a column of stone lifts him well above the reach of the tails, and he watches the movement of the smoke. Tendrils twist, and Gluttony’s muscles bunch as it poises itself to leap at him. Al jumps first—reckless, snapping as he goes; the air’s hot on his skin everywhere, and for a moment the corner of his coat’s on fire—and lands on the broad back just as it rises towards him. He scrambles to keep his footing as Gluttony registers the pressure and roars; everything rocks violently, and he snaps again, and a field of flame surrounds him as all the pale skin lights.

“ _Alphonse_!” Faint over the ambient crackling, but not his imagination—

As the blackened, curling flesh begins to knit back together, Al fumbles for handholds and glances back. The General is staggering to his feet, one hand pressed to the back of his head; even from here Al can see that his white glove’s staining red.

And then Gluttony’s whole body pitches, and Al’s fingers curl but don’t gain purchase; he can’t catch anything, and he slips off into open air—

It feels like he’s falling for far too long, and then he smashes headfirst into the surface of the water and starts to sink, every inch of his skin smarting from the impact. His clothes soak instantly, and the weight makes him sluggish as he tries to paddle; his shoes are too heavy, and his bangs flutter soundlessly into his eyes.

No way. No way in _hell_ he’s going out like this.

He kicks viciously, clawing at the water, ignoring the burn in his empty lungs. The light above him isn’t far; not too far; not too far for an _Elric_ ; he’s given too much to lose now, and he _will not fail_.

He breaks through gasping and sputtering and sucks in the clean air, kicking with his achy legs to keep his head up as the water laps at his chin.

A sudden inferno blinds him momentarily, and then he sees the General—the General snapping and snapping, arms a blur, a trail of burgundy leading away from the wall where he fell, leading towards the circle, because Gluttony’s _almost there_ —

Al thinks of Teacher, with blood on her chin and steel in her eyes. He thinks of the General’s thin smile and strong hands. He thinks of Ed.

The water parts, licking his skin, sloshing at his clothes; he throws his arms on top of the jagged stone at the edge and hauls himself up. Gluttony roars, rages, stomps his swollen limbs; but he keeps backing away from the General’s whirling flames. The twists of the circle are under the tails as they helplessly wag their tongues; then one of the huge hands lands in the middle, and then Gluttony staggers back another step.

The General is magnificent. He’s some kind of god.

Gluttony disappears into a torrent of flame, and Al draws together every last fragment of energy, every last fiber of his being, every last shred of courage and power and pride. He runs, and he presses his palms together, wet coat flapping behind him; he crosses the edge of the circle and keeps running right into the terrible heat. He opens his hands and drives them into the blaze, and the circles on the palms of his gloves make contact with Gluttony’s blistering flesh.

The flames eat through the fabric of the gloves just as the blue light overwhelms everything, and Gluttony’s scream rings around and around inside his skull.

 

 

Ed’s clinging to Alfons’s hand so tightly it’s probably hurting both of them. His father’s form is bent, fingers splayed, for a long, long moment as Envy twists, backlit by the starry sky.

Nothing happens.

_Nothing happe—_

“Dad!” he says. “Dad, what in the hell—”

Hohenheim raises his head to look at Envy. “My son,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”

There’s a low, deep hiss that builds towards a roar, and then Envy’s jaws part, and his body arcs down. Instinctively Ed tugs Alfons away, and he reaches with his whirring motor-arm for—

Envy’s teeth bury themselves in Hohenheim’s torso. A soft gasp of air leaves the man’s lips, and they curve into a smile. Then the blood starts to pour.

“No!” Ed’s heart is in his throat; his vision’s whiting out; he’s tangled with Alfons and fighting to get to Envy to rip that fucking _thing_ apart with his bare hands, dragon or no dragon, scales or no scales; _the bastard’s deader than dead_ — “Dad! What the hell are you—”

Alfons’s whole body trembles, and then the coughing comes again. Ed grips tighter as if it’ll keep him here, keep him safe. As if Ed’s ever been able to save someone.

“Hey,” he starts, “don’t you—”

He hears the low, low hum and barely dares to hope. Then the circle glows—brighter by the moment until his eyes water from looking at it, and then his eyes aren’t watering; he’s crying, because it’s _alchemy_ , and it’s _working_.

A yellow disc just above the curve of Envy’s back expands until it mirrors the size of the transmutation circle aligned below. Ed gets a moment to stare at it, listening to the thudding of his heartbeat in his ears, before he feels the pull.

“Wait,” he says, looking back at Hohenheim—at a man, or a monster, or whatever he is; at a being who tried, failed, and _tried again_. Ed knows how that feels. “Wait, Dad—”

Then it’s like a rope’s been tied around his waist, and the portal yanks on it with staggering force; his grip on Alfons barely holds, and they’re both dragged into the air, free limbs flailing. Alfons looks like he’s screaming, but Ed can’t hear him over the rush of energy boiling at his back as they close the distance and—

Ed’s face strikes stone. The stone definitely wins this round.

Everything spins as he lifts his head; gray and white, white and gray, gray and black. Black lines, and curls, and—is this is the circle that his father…?

He sits up, reeling. This isn’t Hohenzollern. No Envy. No Dad. No…

“Alfons!” The word scrapes in his throat, and he’s halfway to his feet when he sees the familiar form in its worn gray coat, curled up tight like always. He scrambles to Alfons’s side; he can’t see anything else, can’t hear a fucking thing, can’t breathe can’t breathe—

“Ow,” Alfons says faintly, rolling onto his back as Ed’s left hand grips his arm. “Where… we… made it?”

Ed will not cry. “You’re damn right we did, Alfons.”

Alfons laughs—or starts to, and then he bends double, tiny against Ed’s knees, and hacks up a hideous mess of red and black.

“No!” Ed clenches his fingers in the fabric and then finds himself shaking Alfons’s shoulder. “Don’t you _dare_ , not after all—”

“ _Brother_!”

He genuinely doesn’t believe it until Al barrels into him, arms flung around his neck, body warm and damp and smelling overpoweringly of smoke.

Ed might pass out, which would be embarrassing as hell. He fists his good hand in Al’s hair, because it’s the only thing he can actually catch what with all of the bouncing.

“You’re here,” he breathes as Al chatters madly. “It worked, and you’re… you’re _whole_. And—Al, shit, have you been studying medic—”

“Move, Fullmetal.”

Oh, no.

Just no.

No fucking way.

“I said _move_.” There’s a parade-ground bark underlying Roy’s voice, and Ed scuttles back without thinking. Al’s still clinging to his crap-prosthetic, and Alfons’s eyelids flicker as he reaches out weakly, which sends Ed’s heart plummeting straight to the pit of his stomach.

Roy kneels and sets a handful of pink shards on the ground beside him. Then he pulls off his gloves, reaches over, and cuts his finger open on the end of Ed’s jury-rigged arm-blade. He brushes grit and chips of stone aside with his other hand, pauses with an expression of calculating concentration, and draws a six-pointed array with the blood dribbling from his fingertip.

Wait a second. Ed’s memory for circles—for any kind of alchemy—is distinct and unswerving, like how some people never forget a face. It helps that _good_ alchemists’ work goes off in unexplored directions, which forces them to develop unique arrays, which dictates their style, which acts like a signature in the corner if you know where to look.

“That’s based on one of Marcoh’s,” Ed says.

Roy doesn’t even slow down. “I needed something to do other than staring at the snow for days at a time.” Snow? “I had the Lieutenant send me as much material as was safe and tried to retrace your steps. Marcoh’s research seemed like the best bet for understanding where you’d ended up, but ultimately it wasn’t much use. After a week and a half spent decoding it, however—” Ed opens his mouth. “Yes, I know that’s extremely slow compared to you, but so are freight trains and hunting falcons. The point is that afterwards I went back through to adapt and improve some of his medical arrays.”

He sits back, and his single eye— _what_ is going on here?—flicks over the uneven red lines. He touches up a smeary sigil, looks again, and takes a deep breath.

“This will have to do.” He leans over Alfons, whose lips are working soundlessly, whose gaze is flicking everywhere. “I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”

“You’re Mustang,” Alfons whispers in his adorably accented English, which is basically Amestrian’s long-lost twin.

“That’s right,” Roy says, and if he’s surprised, his poker face certainly hasn’t suffered in four years’ time. Gently he slides one arm under Alfons’s shoulders and the other beneath his knees, lifting him just enough to set him down with his chest centered over the array. It’s not far, but Alfons gives a little gasp of pain at being moved, and then he coughs—wetly, one pale hand trembling over his mouth, black goo seeping between his fingers. That stuff’s not like anything Ed’s ever seen coming out of a human body before. It almost reminds him of… of the shadows with their fingers, in the Gate.

He’s been pushing the question away for too long.

What if there’s only room for one Alphonse in this world?

“Relax,” Roy murmurs when the coughing stops, Alfons’s chest still shuddering with aftershocks as he tries to catch his breath. Then Roy gathers the shards of Philosopher’s Stones and sets his hands on the edge of the circle.

Al buries his face in Ed’s shoulder as the red light flares blindingly, but Ed squints and watches the whole thing. Alfons’s back arches high, and a sick wealth of viscous fluid from his lungs melts up through his skin and coagulates in the air above him. Roy flicks one hand, which flings it sideways to splatter some distance away. The light fades, and Alfons collapses to the floor again. His eyes open slowly, clearer now, and brighter.

“I—” he says softly, in German this time. “It feels—” He wedges a hand against the stone and starts to lever himself up; Roy’s wrapped an arm around his shoulders to help him before he’s made much progress alone. He touches his throat and then his breastbone, blinking, and then he looks up at Roy and smiles with a touch of pink in his cheeks. “You… I thank you, sir. You have—this is—”

“Take it easy,” Roy says, smiling back. “Let’s give it a minute to settle before you try to stand up.”

Some of the tension—well, a lot of the tension—that Ed’s been carrying vanishes from his back, and he finds himself leaning on Al a little. Al, who’s here and real and warm and _breathing_ , with a face and his limbs and a huge, delighted smile as his brown eyes fix on Ed’s face. Ed hugs him one-armed, clumsily perhaps, but it says everything he can’t. Then he looks up again and looks closely.

Roy is… well, everything Ed imagined. Everything that came back in dreams, some sultrier than others—ash-streaked, blood-splattered, tall, broad-shouldered, straight-backed, with his dark hair dangling into… yeah, that’s new. And he’s let his hair grow out much longer over the eyepatch, probably in some typically lame, token attempt to hide it.

He glances up and sees Ed watching him. There’s a single beat of silence before he smiles. “Something wrong, Fullmetal?”

“You tell me,” Ed says. He nods to the patch. “What happened?”

“I killed the Führer,” Roy says calmly, and just for a moment, it’s all imminent again—the Homunculi, the Stone, Al trapped, time short, the panic, the terror, the ultimatum, _this place_ — “What remained of Colonel Archer did not exactly wait for an explanation of my betrayal.”

“I always thought he was a piece of shit,” Ed says, because all the other words in his head have fled for stabler ground.

Roy smiles thinly. “Aptly put.”

Ed waits another second—for something, anything—and then looks at Al. “Where’d you get my coat?”

“It’s not your coat,” Al says cheerfully. “I just made it to look like the one you were wearing in the pictures.”

Ed glances at Roy again, and then back at Al. Four years. Shouldn’t—?

“How old are you?” he asks slowly.

“Fifteen,” Al says, hugging him again. “My body came back in the same condition that it left—and with the same memories.” He blinks his huge eyes up at Ed. “The last time I saw you in person was the night we tried to resurrect Mom. I don’t remember anything after that.”

That’s almost… good. That’s almost good, because the only thing Ed’s ever wanted is to protect him, and Ed couldn’t protect him the first time from things like Tucker and Nina and Hughes and Sloth.

But it’s also kind of hard—that all of those things got erased. Ed knows very well that he wouldn’t have gotten through any of it alone. And now, backwards, retroactively, he… has. If a dastardly destructive plot gets foiled in a forest, and nobody remembers, did it really happen?

“Jesus Christ,” Ed says faintly. It’s one of the best things he picked up on the other side, all sharp sounds and mild blasphemy, but Roy and Al just blink at him. He can’t look at either of them right this second, because he dropped out of this world— _his_ world—and everything changed, so dropping back in is going to feel like trespassing for a little while. It won’t ever be as difficult as it was trying to cram himself into the set patterns of incomprehensible foreignness that made up Germany, but neither will it be a walk in the park.

So he looks at Alfons. As far as Ed can tell, since English and Amestrian cut their hair differently and hate sharing clothes, Alfons’s grasp of the language is fairly impressive, but most of his vocabulary comes from poring over scientific progress from Britain and that America place, where supposedly the streets are paved with gold. (Given the deadening dearth of alchemy, Ed sincerely doubts it; besides, considering the malleability of the metal, paving streets with it would be stupider than stupid.) Ed’s not quite sure how much of this conversation just whisked over that precious head, but Alfons doesn’t really seem to mind. Outside of Al, Ed’s never met anyone his age who’s quite like Alfons—whose awareness of the simple and inevitable _fact_ of mortality has made his priorities so plain and rational and good. Alfons has been hurled into a universe where all the rules are different, with the Muttering Yellow-Eyed Boy of Munich as his only guide, and a stranger recently employed magic to extract a bunch of Gate residue gunk from his lungs. He doesn’t even have his suitcase. And he’s smiling.

Alfons looks up at Roy and touches his arm to get his attention. “I think… I think I am ready to stand, sir.”

“Excellent,” Roy says, helping him up with the kind of subtle, warm gracefulness that always did weird things to Ed’s stomach and is doing even weirder things now. “I think I’m ready to test an old theory about the Führer’s office.” He keeps his arm under Alfons’s shoulders to support him as they start off towards the cavern wall, and Alfons blushes downright _daintily_. Ed can only wonder what that’s like; he just gets transmuted into a tomato by his own embarrassment.

As he climbs to his feet, Al grabs his left hand, and Ed catches a glimpse of something very familiar embroidered onto the back of the singed, half-damp glove. He raises their twined hands to stare at it, then disentangles them to look at the other side.

“What the hell is this, Al?” he manages.

“I’ve been busy,” Al says, grinning at him. “And I was going to come and fetch you, except then I dreamed about your plan.”

Ed stares over at the huge circle grafted onto the stone. “You did that all by yourself?” Then he stares at the angry-raw pink of Al’s fingertips where they show through the charred fabric. “And you burnt your hands.”

“Yes,” Al says to the first, “although the General did most of the fighting. And I sort of stuck them into fire. Okay, I definitely stuck them into fire. But I’ll be fine.”

Ed looks at him, looks at his hand—turns it over again, and back, and over.

He sounds like… himself. He sounds like Al, because he _is_ Al—Ed’s Al, the only Al there’s ever been, the only Al there will be, whatever’s been forgotten. He’s still beaming and crazy and thoughtful and kind. He’d still be Al if he’d come back from the Gate as an overlarge begonia.

And Ed would still love the hell out of him, with that only-for-Al love that’s equal parts devotion and ferocity.

So he loops his good arm through the one clothed in a replica of his old coat, and they start off after…

“Hey, Mustang,” Ed says. “Apparently you’re the only one who has any damn clue about the aftermath. What… well, what happened to me? Officially, I mean.”

“Officially,” Roy says without turning to face him, “you’re missing in action. The allegations of treason were dropped, and you’re still on file.”

“Well, you can take that file and burn it,” Ed says. “This is me tendering my resignation.”

Roy mutters something that’s probably “‘Tender’ is not the word I would have picked.”

“Not so fast, Brother,” Al says, and it could have been a million years—Ed would still recognize the ever-so-slightly-devilish arch of his eyebrow. “Did you get a good look at the General’s uniform?”

“Guess so,” Ed says, sifting through the images his brain held onto. “Why… Oh, wait a damn _second_. Colonel, where’d your fancy little color-bar go?”

Roy’s shoulder stiffen more than a bit. “I relinquished the position. Things were… complicated.”

Ed lets that percolate meaningfully for a moment, and then he puts on his airiest voice. “Are you telling me,” he says, “that I _outrank_ you?”

Roy mutters something that’s definitely “I can still set your hair on fire, _Major_.”

Ed is so busy imagining all of the ways he’s going to abuse this power that he barely even notices as they step into a rusty elevator with a rather disturbing hole in the floor. Then there’s so much rattling of panels and squealing of cables that Ed catches every single member of their party—including himself—glancing at the ceiling impatiently. At least he and Al aren’t made of metal anymore; if the cable snapped…

If the cable snapped, he’d use alchemy.

Holy shit. Holy _shit_ , all the things he can do, all the doors that just opened, all the _amazing_ —

Yeah. He’s home.

The doors creak halfway open and then get stuck, so Ed helps by kicking the crap out of them. It’s a good thing he has Al steadying him, though, because the prosthetic leg isn’t much good for balancing on _or_ strong enough to deliver any serious punishment. Oh, man, Ed never thought he’d miss Winry tinkering and sometimes messing with his nerves accidentally-on-purpose, but now he can’t _wait_ —

“This is the Führer’s office, huh?” he asks when the doors have duly cried uncle. He shoots a glare at Roy and then shifts his gaze to Alfons when it just feels… weird. “So how come you’re not installed here, Mustang?”

“That’s Private,” Roy says.

Ed can’t help it. The pun is so fucking bad he laughs at its damn _badness_.

Except then he gets another glimpse of the thin, brittle smile Roy’s been wearing this whole time, and it feels like he’s been sucker-punched.

“Speaking of which,” Roy says, leaning down to make sure Alfons is still okay, “I’d like to stop by my old office if no one has any objections. I’m hoping to get Lieutenant Hawkeye started on the paperwork to recover my rank, if at all possible. If nothing else, I intend to reclaim my State Alchemist status and fight my way back up. At the very least, I’ll no longer have to take orders from the likes of you, Fullmetal.”

That’s banter. That’s the old poke-poke-give-and-take thing they always did, except that this time it kind of… hurts.

“As if I’d _deign_ to give you orders,” Ed says. “Other than, like, cleaning my boots, which I’m going to order you to do later.”

“Young man,” Roy says to Alfons as if he hasn’t heard, which of course he has; “have you ever seen a pair of boots incinerated with alchemy?”

Alfons blinks.

“I think we should probably go before somebody dies,” Al says contentedly, tugging Ed towards the door. “Can we stop by General Hakuro’s office?”

“No,” Roy says.

Ed barely registers that with the way his head’s grappling for wisps of old, old information. “Isn’t he that tool we saved on the train a gajillion years ago?”

“Yes, he is,” Roy says. “And you sh—”

“He called you a whore, Brother,” Al says, “so I’m going to rip his throat out.”

Ed feels like he’s been stabbed in the small of the back with a hot poker. “You _what_?”

Al blinks at him and opens the door.

“Hang on,” Ed says. “Look, I don’t know what… The thing is, just because someone’s a bad person doesn’t mean you can rip their throat out. Even if they deserve it. Sometimes you have to let it go.”

Al frowns.

“You _have_ grown up,” Roy’s voice says quietly from behind them, but Ed refuses to turn.

“Yeah, well, living in a world where you can’t just exert your will by way of superior alchemical prowess will do that for you.” It’s also taught him how to dig into people, and he can’t stop the question that slithers out of his throat, cool and light and prying. “Worried I won’t want you anymore?”

Al actually stops walking to look at him like he’s crazy—and then to look at Roy like _he’s_ crazy, and then to look between the both of them like he isn’t sure whether to slap them or run away screaming.

 _What took you so long to figure it out?_ Ed wants to ask. _Nobody sane ever volunteers to be a goddamn military dog._

“Yes,” Roy says, and Ed _has_ to look at him, which is probably what he wants.

Ed’s heart bangs against his ribs, and he expects it to break right out and throw itself down at Roy Mustang’s feet.

Except it doesn’t. They just stare at each other in silence for a minute, and then Ed can’t stand how unreadable Roy is—how he can just _wipe it all off_ and become a mystery cloaked in an enigma belted with fucking secrets—and swings back around on his good heel, starting down the hall.

“ _Brother_ ,” Al says in a long-suffering voice that, interestingly, carries twice as much guilt-trip without the armor echo.

“Leave it, Al,” Ed says. By some miracle he’s still got the piss-poor layout of this place down. “Let’s just get Colonel Asshole his colonelship back.”

“General,” Al mumbles.

“Fucking _whatever_.”

Al sighs, and Ed knows that sigh very well, because it’s the prelude to every Al monologue that starts with _Brother, you’re being an idiot, and I have alphabetized and color-coded the reasons why_.

He preempts it by blasting through the door that used to be Roy’s. Extremely satisfyingly, it still slams open with the same horrendous noise and incredible force that it used to do.

“Good—” Ed glances towards the window at the back. “—evening.”

Jaws drop. Havoc’s unlit cigarette tumbles to the floor.

And then Ed is experiencing the rather unusual sensation of being hugged almost to the point of suffocation by several people at once.

 

 

The other world’s Alphonse—Roy really needs to learn his name—looks more than a little bit cowed. Roy doesn’t blame him; Major Armstrong in a full-on, shirtless, sparkling, tears-of-joy-fest has that effect on most people who _have_ previously encountered the family.

Roy catches Riza’s eye over the fray of adoration. She doesn’t even seem surprised to see him, which is essentially Riza in a nutshell. She touches Maria Ross’s arm in a way that whispers _I’m going to thank you for this when we’re alone_ in an undertone not many people know her well enough to hear, and then she edges around the chaos to meet him in the doorway.

“Hello,” she says warmly to other-world-Alphonse, holding out her hand. “I’m Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, and I will do everything I can to help you feel at home.”

Starry-eyed, the boy shakes. “I am—my name is Alfons Heiderich, I…”

“He needs to be hospitalized,” Roy says.

Tremendously predictably, Riza’s eyes pick out the bloodstains on his collar. “So do you, sir.”

“And Alphonse,” Roy says. “The…” Original? This one’s significantly older. “…brunet Alphonse. His hands are burnt—somewhat severely, I believe.”

Riza’s clipboard appears from nowhere. “Right. Is Edward hurt?”

 _He prefers to be on the other side of that transitive verb today._ “Not that I’m aware of, although we’ll need to contact the Rockbells; whatever he has now isn’t automail.” He considers, raising another mental wall between his reason and the devastating pain at the back of his head. “And I think the Tringham brothers will be waiting on the news that he’s alive.”

She nods, writing swiftly. “Done and done. Shall I start my letter to Führer Grumman regarding the reassignment of your rank, sir?”

“No, Lieutenant,” he says, unable to stifle the smile. “You should go home and have a restful night—” His gaze flicks to Ross, and Riza’s cheeks color _ever_ so slightly. “—to prepare for the way I take this place by storm the second the hospital releases me.”

Riza’s eyes soften, and the corners of her mouth curl up. “I’ll look forward to that, sir.” She turns around, and somehow she doesn’t have to shout over the madness to be heard. “Edward? Alphonse?”

Edward has been slung over Armstrong’s bare shoulder and doesn’t seem to be enjoying the elevated view of the world, if the way he’s flailing with all three of his useful limbs is any indication. Alphonse is hanging from Armstrong’s elbow, apparently attempting a rescue. They both look over with the same sort of expression Roy usually sees on Black Hayate, although they’re marginally subtler about their desire for Riza’s approval than the dog.

“Mr. Heiderich is going to get checked into the hospital,” Riza says. “You, too, Alphonse. I’m going to give your mechanic a call momentarily, Edward; for the moment you’re welcome to any of the usual Central amenities.”

“I don’t think the barracks count as an ‘amenity,’” Edward says. His right hand is nothing but articulated metal now, but it doesn’t stop him wriggling free of Armstrong and alighting like a cat. “Can I stay with Al and Alfons?”

“I would wager that the hospital staff still knows better than to argue with you about that kind of thing,” Riza says, and then she’s headed off down the hall, and none of them have much choice but to follow.

Inside of half an hour, Alphonse’s hands are swathed in salve-lined bandages, Roy’s head wound has been wrapped, and Alfons Heiderich is laid out in a crisp white bed, surrounded by nice-looking doctors with stethoscopes.

“One more thing, sir,” Riza says when they’re all standing in the hall pretending not to peek into Alfons’s room.

Roy blinks at her, and she puts both arms around his waist and hugs him tightly.

“Welcome back,” she says.

Once she’s hugged each of the Elrics, somewhat more gently, she salutes all three of them and sets off through the swinging double-doors at the far end of the corridor.

“I can’t believe you left her here,” Edward says, and there’s a low note of unidentifiable venom.

“I told you,” Roy says. “It was complicated.”

“Well, good to know nothing in Central has changed; you’re still bullshitting with the best of them.”

Roy used to love nothing more than getting frustrated with Edward. They’d snipe at each other, prod curiously, play games; Edward would track mud in and leave perishables out on the counter; Roy would gather him up in the middle of his work, wrangle him into the bedroom, throw him onto the mattress, rile him up, and then spend twenty minutes assiduously stroking his hair before he’d give in to demands for sex.

Right now, it just makes him feel… old. Tired. Beaten.

“ _That’s_ it,” Alphonse says. He grabs one of their elbows in each of his bound hands, drags them down the hallway, and shoves them into an unoccupied room. “Both of you,” he says, “buck up. I’m going to go get some takeout for all of us, and I’m not letting you out of here until I get back. Start talking.”

Roy blinks. “What do you mean you’re not—”

Alphonse retrieves a pen tipped in an Armstrong bust from a pocket of his coat (exactly when did he become a klepto? This is not in any way, shape, or form Roy’s fault), slams the door, and is audible beginning to scribble an array. Momentarily the doorframe seals itself shut.

Edward huffs in the back of his throat. “C’mon, Al.” He moves straight for the window. “At least make it a little bit of a challenge.”

Roy takes a deep breath. “Fullmetal.”

Edward turns on him furiously. “Why the hell do you keep _calling_ me that?”

“Because that’s what you are,” Roy says, fighting to keep his voice from rising to match Edward’s—the intervening years haven’t dulled the young man’s tendency to combust into rage faster than Roy can summon flame. “You’re the Fullmetal Alchemist.”

“We’re _past_ that,” Edward says. “Or is it only okay to call me by my first name when I’m fifteen years old and in your fucking _bed_ , Mustang?”

“Don’t shout at me,” Roy says.

“Will you answer the fucking question?”

Roy looks at the thoroughly-impassable door. “I… The fact is that it’s been a _long_ time. A lot has changed. Arguably, I took liberties then that I never should have; and I don’t want to take any now. I’m thirty-four years old, Edward. No longer quite twice your age, which I suppose is a positive, but I couldn’t meet your energy halfway even back then. I’ve rather prominently fallen from grace in the only career I’ve ever known, and while I meant it that I’m going to try to start again, it won’t be the same. I’m not the same. Clearly you’re not.” He rubs carefully at a place where the bandages itch. “Besides, you… have a new life. You’re a new person.” He inclines his head towards Alfons’s room. “You brought some of that with you. And…” _Well, Edward, your brother spent several days trying to seduce me so that I could teach him how to seduce_ you. “Alphonse needs you—more than either of you realizes, I think. There doesn’t seem to be room for me anymore, and that’s all right. That’s probably for the best.”

Edward has ducked so that his disheveled hair shields his eyes, but Roy can tell from the tight lines of his uneven shoulders that the speech didn’t go over especially well.

“Why would you say something like that?” Edward asks at last, in such a low voice that Roy sidles closer to hear. “Why would you tell me to let go of you like it’d be selfish of me not to?” He looks up sharply, and his eyes are bright and scathingly incensed. “Why do you keep pushing me _away_ when I’ve just dragged myself back from the other side of fucking oblivion, and I’m sore and starving and exhausted, and I just saw Envy take a bite out of my fucking _father_ , and all I wanted—” Tears swell and gleam at the edges of his eyes, and his voice cracks, but he plows through as though his pain has personally offended him. “—and _all I fucking wanted_ was somebody to come home to who wouldn’t _ask_ for anything.”

Something in Roy is dissolving at the seams, and pieces are falling and shattering everywhere. “You’ve got Al again. You have two of them, actually. You don’t really need—”

Edward explodes again—Edsplodes, really. “What I don’t need is your _shit_ , Roy fucking _Mustang_! After all of that _crap_ about how things have changed and you don’t know me and you’re all damaged and whatever else—you’re going to turn around and _tell me_ what you think I _need_?”

He whirls, and his coat flutters, and he kicks a machine so hard that he dents both it and his prosthetic foot. Roy knows very well that a fractionally angrier Edward Elric would have directed that force into a blow to some vulnerable part of Roy’s anatomy. Edward sets his jaw, claps his hands after just one moment of difficulty with the metal hinge-elbow, and fixes the equipment so flawlessly that the hospital staff will never guess at the truth.

“Tough shit, Roy,” Edward says, scowling at the floor. “I need a lot of things, and you’re one of them. You’re just going to have to fucking deal with it.”

Roy swallows. He swallows again. He looks at the tangle of too-yellow hair brushing against Edward’s faintly-altered, stronger, sharper jaw.

“Oh,” he says.

Edward covers his face with his left hand. “You have got to be, no contest, the stupidest fucking person I have ever fallen in love with.”

Roy’s on autopilot now, because his heart has wrung itself dry, and his brain has shut down completely. “I’m pleased to see that four years in an alternate world has done nothing to dull your gracious charm.”

The laugh that crawls out of Edward’s mouth and writhes on the linoleum is strangled at best. He drops his hand and offers Roy the least convincing glare in the history of their acquaintance, which is saying a lot. “First and last fucking order, Private Mustang—come over here and prove to me that you’re just a fucking idiot, not a fucking asshole.”

“Your eloquence,” Roy says, crossing to him, barely daring to touch him and then unable to stop, “astounds.”

Edward’s just tall enough now to rise into the kiss with his arm crooked over Roy’s shoulder, fingers twisting in the hair at the back of his neck. Somehow they fit together even better now than they did, and even down two limbs, Edward’s radiating heat. Roy would already be having him on the hospital bed if that wasn’t prohibitively tacky, even for them.

Edward bites his lip hard enough to draw blood as he pulls back, and when Roy looks indignant, he smirks. “You really think I was going to let you treat me like that without a punishment?”

Roy probes at the wound with his fingertip and grimaces. “Little—”

“ _Hey_ , who are you—”

“—bastard; that hurts.”

“—calling so short he should punch your ass instead of kicking it? Punishments are supposed to hurt.” One of his eyebrows rises, and it tugs that side of his mouth up with it. “You need me to kiss it better?”

“Desperately,” Roy says.

 

 

When Al rescues them from the door seal it would have taken Brother approximately a quarter of a second to obliterate, he finds Ed and the General curled up on the room’s bed. Ed has settled his head on the General’s thigh, and the General is stroking his fingers through Ed’s hair, having spread it out across his lap.

“…anyway, the whole inflation thing made me kind of worry about the balance of governmental powers here, so—hey, Al—you should explain it to me sometime.” He sits up and bounces off the bed, grinning broadly. “I hope you brought pretty much all of the food in Central.”

“I recruited Lieutenants Havoc and Breda to help me find something good and carry it back,” Al says. Truly, his wide-and-pleading eyes are a force to be reckoned with. “Second Lieutenant Ross said she’d bring our suitcases by later, General. Come on, Brother; I’ve already gotten Alfons started, and you’re going to drown in your own saliva if you stand there drooling any longer.”

Ed flings the left arm around him briefly and then disappears in a streak of yellow and muted brown.

The General stands, flicking creases out of his uniform. Al looks up at him, and he looks back.

“Thank you,” the General says.

“My motives were not entirely generous,” Al says. “If the two of you aren’t fighting, I’m much more likely to get peripheral action from both of you.” He lets the General’s face slip into an expression of unmitigated amazement and waves over his shoulder as he starts out the door. “Dinner’s going to get cold soon…”

The last four years of Al’s life have been a huge and labyrinthine mess of absentee memories and unlearned skills. Every day has been an obstacle course, navigating undone relationships, severed connections, and a world that simply isn’t friendly or safe.

But all of the striving was worth it for this—for four people sitting around a cluster of takeout boxes, laughing and talking and touching gently. For this warmth. For this room full of nothing but deep, stirring, unconditional love. For Brother’s chipmunk face with his mouth full of noodles; for Alfons’s twinkling pale blue eyes; for the General’s deft chopsticks stealing individual grains of rice before Al can reach them, because he’s a ruthless tease and the most tantalizing man Al has ever met. For the kind of happiness all of them were waiting for, convinced that none of them deserved it.

But they do. And Al will transmute-seal the mouth of anyone foolish enough to disagree.

The General flags down a nurse as Alfons’s eyelids start to lower more often and lift more slowly.

The General dips his chin, raises his head, and looks at the young woman through his eyelashes, from the shadow of his hair. “I’m terribly sorry,” he says, and the faint edge of roughness to his voice sends a shudder upwards from the base of Al’s spine; “but… is there any way we could have three more cots in here? Only if it’s not any trouble, but might you…?”

The latest victim of the General’s charisma titters out an affirmative and scampers down the hall.

The General flips his hair. “Still got it.”

Ed’s eyebrow arches sardonically, but his mouth quirks. “Smug bastard.”

“Guilty as charged,” the General says.

When the cots arrive, Ed transmutes them all together next to Alfons’s. The General’s new friend was kind enough to supply sufficient pillows even for Brother’s hogging habits, as well as a set of toothbrushes that delights the General himself. In a matter of minutes, Ed’s lying on the edge to clasp Alfons’s hand in his, and Al’s curled up with his truncated shoulder, and the General has molded himself to Al’s back with his arm over both of them.

Al supposes, in his last conscious moments, that he should have expected perfection to be somewhat tiring. So many variables to set in place and hold onto and listen to the soothing heartbeats of…

He wakes up at some ungodly hour with his heart racing, and he presses himself into the side of Ed’s body as his eyes adjust to the dark. He used to have dreams like that interspersed with the visions of Elsewhere—dreams where he gave himself away somehow, or Ed found out, and everything between them broke. Dreams where Brother stopped trusting him. Dreams where Brother told him he was sick. Dreams where Brother left on purpose this time.

He touches the tarnished metal that makes up Ed’s shoulder now. _Was I worth it, Brother?_

It’s like when they were children; Ed always slept so soundly then, with his hand on his stomach, wedging up his shirt and tempting Al so _badly_ to trace a fingertip along the sliver of skin. Al would touch his face sometimes, and his arms, and his chest—feather-lightly, like that made it deniable.

He nestles closer, and the General shifts behind him, muttering something that sounds like “Beautiful hair.”

Al lays his arm carefully over Brother’s waist. He can’t afford to lose Ed now, for anything.

After a moment of Al burying his face in Brother’s chest, Ed squirms a little. “You awake, Al?” he mumbles.

“Maybe,” Al whispers back.

Ed’s good hand reaches across to muss his hair. “Al,” he says slowly, “are you okay?”

After Mom died, Ed was the only thing Al had. The last time Al saw him, they risked _everything_ , and they did it together. Al has spent the last four years searching for him. He’s all there is, and he deserves the truth.

“I don’t think so,” Al says. “I don’t think I am.”

Ed runs his fingers through Al’s hair silently for a moment, and then he strokes his hand gently up and down Al’s back.

“I love you, Al,” he says softly. “I never said it enough. I like to think I proved it, before, and I wish I’d been here to prove it to you this time around, but this’ll have to do. I love you, and that’s not just a statement; it’s a promise. Whatever it takes, we’re going to make things all right—you and me, like it’s always been. Like it always will be.”

“I love you, too, Brother,” Al whispers.

Ed kisses his forehead and pulls the blanket up over him, and Al sinks back into warmth.

When he crawls out of the tangle just after noon the next day, the suitcases are on the table. Beside them lies an envelop that says _Roy_ on it, which Al opens before the General swims back into wakefulness; it contains nothing more than several star-shaped pins, some colorful ribbons, and a note that says _Congratulations, sir_. Beside that is a second envelope, which says _For Alphonse’s album_. The only thing inside is one of those quick-inking photographs—it shows the four of them as they’ve been all morning, linked together, fast asleep with the sunlight pouring in.

 

 

Combining rocketry and alchemy is much more difficult than it sounds in concept—especially if you happen to be a young man who’s grown up in a world that only ever uses the word “magic” figuratively—but becoming part of a quartet founded, apparently accidentally, on the concept of love as a blessing to be shared… strangely, that’s easier than Alfons had thought.

He’s been categorizing things a lot lately. Chasing the rats out of General Mustang’s old house: unpleasant, but tolerable, and rife with mind-boggling alchemical shenanigans, including a memorable instance of the attic almost catching fire. Attempting to grasp the basics of alchemy and twist his brain around it as a _science_ like the ones he knows: challenging, but he loves a challenge. Struggling to make his complex ideas understood in a language that’s sometimes still elusive: troublesome, but a little easier every day. Adjusting his palate to new food: manageable and occasionally exciting. Learning: magical. Magic: learnable. Loving: simple, he can’t say how.

There are things he misses—people, places, thoughts. On his first morning, he looked out the hospital room window at a city where everything was incomprehensible and unreal. He caught Ed watching him, and he was going to explain, but Ed didn’t give him a chance. Ed just reached into a pocket of his coat, took out a sheaf of creased papers, and handed him an almost-perfect copy of the best rockets-and-astrophysics-and-theory notes he’d ever put together—the precise piece of home that he would have asked for.

That’s just… Ed. And Ed is why.

Every dawn in Central City, Amestris—every first deep and even breath of air—is a kindness that Alfons is ready for. Every day is a chance that he’s happy to take.

Honestly, he’s just happy.

And that’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO. First, if you got this far, I officially love you. Second, ~~I'm currently working on a was-supposed-to-be-short follow-up fic to wrap up the leftovers, but I'm notoriously crap at actually finishing anything that looks like a sequel. I'll make it known where you can find that if I do, in fact, succeed at writing it. ♥~~ OH, SNAP, a wild miracle appeared! Click below for the sequel. ♥


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